THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


DEPARTMENT  OK  GEOLOGY 

UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIF. 


Tke  RALPH  D.  REED  LIBRARY 


of  Oil  Companies  of  Southern  Cali 
Fornia,  Alumni  and  Faculty  of  Geology  Depar 
ment  and  University  Library. 

1940 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES 


AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD 


BY 


ARCHIBALD  GEIKfE,  L.L.D.,  F.R.S. 

Director-General  of  the  Geological  Surveys  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 


NEW  YORK 

THE    HUMBOLDT    PUBLISHING    CO. 
ASTOR   PLACE. 


Library 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES 


AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


BY  ARCHIBALD  GEIKIE,  LL.D.,  F.R.S, 

Director-General  of  the  Geological  Surveys  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 


IN  TWO  PARTS-PART  L 


I. 

MY    FIRST   GEOLOGICAL   EX- 
CURSION. 

Tis  an  old  story  now,  so  far  back,  indeed, 
that  I  hardly  like  to  reckon  up  the  years  that 
have  since  passed  away.  But  clear  and 
bright  does  it  stand  in  my  memory,  notwith- 
standing, that  quiet  autumnal  afternoon, 
with  its  long  country  ramble  to  an  old  quarry, 
the  merry  shouts  of  my  sc  oolmates,  the 
endless  yarns  we  span  by  the  way,  and  the 
priceless  load  of  stones  we  bore  homeward 
over  those  \\  eary  miles,  when  the  SUD  had 
sunk,  red  and  fiery,  in  the  west,  and  the 
shadows  of  twilight  began  to  deepen  the 
gloom  of  the  wood^.  Many  a  country  ramble 
have  I  made  since  then,  but  none,  perhaps, 
with  so  deep  and  hearty  an  enjoyment,  for  it 
opened  up  a  new  world,  into  which  a  fancy 
fresh  from  the  Arabian  Nights  and  Don 
Quixote  could  adventurously  ride  forth. 

Up  to  that  time  my  leisure  hours,  after 
school-lessons  were  learnt,  and  all  custom- 
ary games  were  played,  had  been  given  to 
laborious  mechanical  contrivances,  based 
sometimes  on  m 
fttt  a  white  I  beli 


ost  preposterous  principles, 
ieved  I  had  discovered  per- 


petual motion.  Day  and  night  the  vision 
haunted  me  of  a  wheel  turning,  turning,  in 
endless  revolutions;  and  what  was  not  this 
wheel  to  accomplish?  It  was  to  be  the  motive- 
power  in  every  manufactory  all  through  the 
country  to  the  end  of  time,  to  be  called  by 
my  name,  just  as  other  pieces  of  mechanism 
bore  the  names  of  other  inventive  worthies, 
in  th  it  treasure  of  a  book,  The  Century  of  In- 
ventions. Among  various  contrivances  I  re- 
member  striving  hard  to  construct  a  boat 
that  should  go  through  the  water  by  means 
of  paddles,  to  be  worked  by  a  couple  of  men, 
or,  failing  them,  by  a  horse;  but  though  I 
found  (if  my  memory  serve  me)  that  my  hero, 
the  old  Marquis  of  Wo-cester,  had  antici- 
pated the  invention  by  almost  200  years,  I 
could  not  succeed  in  getting  the  paddles 
to  move  except  when  the  boat  was  out  of  the 
water,  and  so  the  grand  contrivance,  that 
might  have  made  its  discoverer  famous  in 
every  harbor  in  the  kingdom,  fell  to  the 
ground. 

The  Saturday  afternoons  were  always  ob- 
served by  us  as  a  consecrated  holiday-time, 
all  school-work  being  then  consigned  to  a  de- 
lightful oblivion.  To  learn  a  lesson  during 
these  hours  was  regarded  as  something  d« 


733919 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


generate  and  wholly  unworthy  the  dignity  of 
a  schoolboy.  Besides,  we  had  always  plenty 
of  work  of  some  kind  to  fill  up  the  time,  and 
what  the  nature  of  that  work  was  to  be  for 
the  ensuing  Saturday  had  usually  been  de- 
termined long  before  the  covet  d  Saturday 
came.  Sometimes,  if  the  weather  was  dull, 
my  comrades  repaired  to  my  room  (which  was 
dignified  as  "the  workshop")  to  hear  a  dis- 
quisition on  the  last  invention,  or  to  help  if 
they  could  in  removing  some  troublesome 
and  apparently  insuperable  mechanical  diffi- 
culty. Or  we  planned  a  glorious  game  of 
cricket,  or  golf,  or  football,  that  seldom 
came  to  a  close  until  the  evening  grew  too 
dark  for  longer  play.  In  spring-time  we 
would  sally  forth  into  the  country  to  some 
well-remembered  bank,  where  the  primroses 
and  violets  bloomed  earliest,  and  return  at 
dusk,  bringing  many  a  bunch  for  those  at 
home.  The  summer  afternoons  often  found 
us  loitering,  rod  in  hand,  along  the  margin 
ol  a  shady  streamlet,  in  whose  deeper  pools 
the  silvery  troutlets  loved  to  feed.  And  it 
fed,  truly,  with  little  danger  from  us.  The 
writhing  worm  (we  never  soared  to  the  use  of 
tne  fly),  though  ever  so  skilfully  and  unfeel- 
ingly twined  round  the  hook,  failed  to  allure 
the  scaly  brood,  which  we  could  see  darting 
up  and  down  the  current  without  so  much  as 
a  nibble  at  our  tempting  bait.  Not  so,  how- 
ever, with  another  member  of  that  tribe,  the 
little  stickleback,  or  "beardie,"  as  we  called 
:t,  to  which  we  had  the  most  determined  and 
unreasonable  antipathy.  The  cry  of  "A 
beardie  !  a  beardie  !  "  from  one  of  cur  party 
was  the  sign  for  every  rod  and  stick  to  be 
thrown  down  on  the  bank,  and  a  general 
rush  to  the  spot  where  the  enemy  of  the 
trout  had  been  seen.  Off  went  stockings 
and  shoes,  and  in  plunged  the  wearer,  straight 
to  the  large  stone  in  mid-channel  under  which 
the  foe  was  supposed  to  be  lurking.  Cau- 
tiously were  the  fingers  passed  into  the 
crevices  and  round  the  base  of  the  stone,  and 
the  little  victim,  fairly  caught  at  last  in  his 
den,  was  thrown  in  triumph  to  the  bank, 
where  many  a  stone  was  at  hand  to  end  his 
torments  and  his  life. 

Autumn  brought  round  the  cornfields,  and 
the  hedgerows  rich  in  hip,  and  haw,  and 
bramble  ;  and  then,  dear  to  the  heart  of 
schoolboy,  came  winter  with  its  sliding,  skat- 
ing, and  snowballing,  and  its  long,  merry 
evenings,  with  their  rounds  of  festivity  and 
plumcake. 

'Tis  an  old  story,  truly  ;  but  I  remember 
as  if  it  had  been  yesterday,  how  my  Saturday 
employments  were  changed,  and  how  the 
vagrant,  careless  fancies  of  the  schoolboy 
passed  into  the  settled  purposes  that  have 
moulded  the  man.  I  had  passed  a  Saturday 
afternoon  alone,  and  next  day  as  usual  met 
my  comrades  at  church.  On  comparing 
notes,  I  found  that  the  previous  afternoon 
they  had  set  out  for  some  lime-quarries, 
about  four  miles  off,  and  had  returned  laden 


with  wonders — plants  of  strange  form,  with 
scales,  teeth,  and  bones  of  uncouth  fishes, 
all  embedded  in  the  heart  of  the  stone,  and 
drawn  out  of  a  subterranean  territory  of  al- 
most fabulous  extent  and  gloom.  Could  any- 
thing more  marvellous  have  been  suggested 
to  a  youthful  fancy  ?  The  caverns  of  the 
Genii,  even  that  of  the  Wonderful  Lamp, 
seemed  not  more  to  be  coveted.  At  least  the 
new  cave  had  this  great  advantage  over  the 
old  ones,  that  I  was  sure  it  was  really  true  ; 
a  faint  suspicion  having  begun  to  arise  that, 
possibly,  after  all,  the  Eastern  caverns  might 
have  no  more  tangible  existence  than  on  the 
pages  of  the  story-book.  But  here,  only  four 
miles  from  my  own  door,  was  a  real  cavern, 
mysterious  beyond  the  power  of  my  friends 
to  describe,  inhabited  by  living  men  wno 
toiled  like  gnomes,  with  murky  faces  and 
little  lamps  on  their  foreheads,  driving 
wagons,  and  blasting  open  the  rock  in  vast 
and  seemingly  impenetrable  galleries,  where 
the  sullen  reverberations  boomed  as  it  were 
for  miles  among  endless  gigantic  pillars  and 
sheets  of  Stygian  water  and  stretched  awav 
deep  and  dark  into  fathomless  gloom.  And 
in  that  rock,  wrapped  up  in  its  substance  like 
mummies  in  their  cerements,  lay  heaps  of 
plants  of  wondrous  kinds  ;  some  resembled 
those  of  our  woods  and  streams,  but  there 
were  many,  the  like  to  which  my  companions 
declared  that  even  in  our  longest  rambles 
they  had  never  seen  on  bank,  or  brake,  or 
hill  ;  fishes,  too,  there  were,  with  strong, 
massive  scales,  very  different  from  our  trouts 
and  minnows.  Some  of  the  spiny  fins,  in- 
deed, just  a  little  resembled  those  of  our  foe 
the  "beardie."  Very  likely  (thought  I)  the 
Genius  of  the  cave  being  a  sensible  fellow, 
has  resolved  to  preserve  his  trout,  and  so 
with  a  murrain  on  the  beardies  has  buried 
them  bodily  in  the  rock. 

But  above  all,  in  these  dark  subterranean 
recesses  lurked  the  remains  of  gigantic  rep- 
tiles ;  and  one  of  the  quarrymen  possessed  a 
terrific  tusk  and  some  fragmentary  scales, 
which  he  would  have  sold  to  my  friends  could 
their  joint  purse  have  supplied  the  stipulated 
price. 

My  interest'in  the  tale,  of  course,  increased 
at  every  new  incident ;  but  when  they  came 
to  talk  of  reptiles,  the  exuberant  fancy  could 
contain  itself  no  longer.  "Dragons!  drag- 
ons !  "  I  shouted,  and  rubbed  my  hands  in  an 
ecstacy  of  delight.  "Dragons,  boys,  be 
sure  they  are,  that  have  been  turned  into 
stoie  by  the  magic  of  some  old  necromancer." 

They  had  found,  too,  in  great  abundance, 
what  they  had  been  told  were  "  coprolites  " — 
that  is,  as  we  afterwards  learnt,  the  petrified 
excrement  of  ancient  fishes.  "  Coppet -lites, " 
thought  I,  nay,  perchance  it  might  be  golds 
for  who  ever  read  of  such  a  famous  cavern 
with  petrified  forests,  fishes,  and  dragons, 
that  had  not  besides  huge  treasures  of  yellow 
gold? 

So  there  and  then  we  planned  an  excursion 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


for  the  following  Saturday.  *  he  days  that 
intervened  stretched  themselves  somehow  to 
an  interminable  leng-.h.  It  seemed  the  long- 
est week  of  my  life,  even  though  every  sleep- 
ing and  waking  hour  was  crowded  with 
visions  of  the  wondrous  caverns.  At  length 
the  long  expected  morning  dawned,  and  sr  on 
brightened  up  into  a  clear,  calm  autumnal 
day. 

We  started  off  about  noon  ;  a  goodly  band 
of  some  eight  or  nine  striplings,  with  two  or 
three  hammers,  and  a  few  pence  amongst  us, 
and  no  need  to  be  home  before  dusk.  An 
October  sun  shone  merrily  out  upon  us  ;  the 
fields,  bared  of  their  sheaves,  had  begun  to 
be  again  laid  under  the  plough,  and  long  lines 
of  rich  brown  loam  alternated  with  bands  of 
yellow  stubble  up  and  down  which  toiled 
many  a  team  of  steaming  -horses.  The  neigh- 
boring woods,  gorgeous  in  their  tints  of  green, 
gold,  and  russet,  stnt  forth  clouds  of  rooks, 
whose  noisy  jangle,  borne  onward  by  the 
breeze,  and  mingling  with  the  drone  of  the 
bee  and  the  carol  of  the  lark,  grew  mellow  in 
the  distance,  as  the  cadence  of  a  far-off  hymn. 
We  were  too  young  to  analyze  the  landscape, 
but  not  too  young  to  find  .n  every  feature  of 
it  the  intensest  enjoyment.  Moreover,  our 
path  lay  through  a  district  rich  in  historic 
associations.  Watch-peels,  castles,  and  towers 
looked  out  upon  us  as  we  walked,  each  with 
its  traditionary  tales,  the  recital  of  which 
formed  one  of  our  chief  delights.  Or  if  a 
castle  lacked  its  story,  our  invention  easily 
supplied  the  defect.  And  thus  every  part  of 
the  way  came  to  be  memorable  in  our  eyes 
for  some  thrilling  event,  real  or  imaginary — 
battles,  stern  and  bloody,  fierce  encounters 
in  single  combat,  strange  weird  doings  of 
antique  wizards,  and  marvelous  achievements 
of  steel-clad  knights,  who  rambled  restlessly 
through  the  wond  to  deliver  imprisoned 
maidens. 

Thus  beguiled,  the  four  miles  seemed  to 
shrink  into  one,  and  we  arrived  at  length  at 
the  quarries.  They  had  been  opened,  I 
found,  along  the  slope  of  a  gentle  declivity. 
At  the  north  end  stood  the  kilns  where 
the  lime  was  burnt,  the  white  smoke  from 
which  we  used  to  see  some  miles  away. 
About  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  the  south 
lay  the  workings  where  my  com- 
rades had  seen  the  subterranean  men  ; 
and  there,  too,  stood  the  engine  that 
drew  up  the  wagons  and  pumped  out  the 
water.  Between  the  engine  and  the  kilns 
the  hillside  had  all  been  mined  and  exhaust- 
ed; the  quarry  men  having  gradually  exca- 
vated their  way  southwards  to  where  we  saw 
the  smoking  chimney  of  the  engine-house. 
We  made  for  a  point  midway  in  the  excava- 
tions; and  great  indeed  was  our  delight,  on 
climbing  a  long  bank  of  grass-grown  rubbish, 
to  see  below  us  a  green  hollow,  and  beyond 
it  a  wall  of  rock,  in  the  centre  of  which 
yawned  a  deep  cavern,  plunging  away  into 
the  hill  far  from  the  light  of  day.  My  com- 


panions rushed  down  the  slope  with  a  shout  of 
triumph.  For  myself,  I  lingered  a  moment 
on  the  top.  With  just  a  tinge  of  sadness  in 
the  thought,  I  felt  that  though  striking  and 
picturesque  beyond  anything  of  the  kind  I 
had  ever  seen,  this  cavern  was  after  all  only 
a  piece  of  human  handiwork.  The  heaps  of 
rubbish  around  me,  with  the  smoking  kilns  at 
the  one  end  and  the  clanking  engine  at  the 
other,  had  no  connection  with  beings  of  an- 
other world,  but  told  only  too  plainly  of  in- 
genious, indefatigable  man.  The  spell  was 
broken  at  once  and  forever,  and  as  it  fell  to 
pieces,  I  darted  down  the  slope  and  rejoined 
my  comrades. 

They  had  already  entered  the  cave,  which 
was  certainly  vast  and  gloomy  enough  for 
whole  legions  of  gnomes.  The  roof,  steep 
as  that  of  a  house,  sloped  rapidly  into  the 
hillside  beneath  a  murky  sheet  of  water,  and 
was  supported  by  pillars  of  wide  girth,  some 
of  which  had  a  third  of  their  height,  or  more, 
concealed  by  the  lake,  so  that  the  cavern, 
with  its  inclined  roof  and  pillars,  half  sunk 
in  the  water,  looked  as  though  it  had  been 
rent  and  submerged  by  some  old  earthquake. 
Not  a  vestige  of  vegetation  could  we  see 
save,  near  the  entrance,  some  dwarfed  scolo- 
pendriums  and  pale  patckes  of  moss.  Not 
an  insect,  nor  indeed  any  living  thing  seemed ' 
ever  to  venture  into  this  dreary  den.  Away  it 
stretched  to  the  right  hand  and  the  left,  in 
j  long  withdrawing  vistas  of  gloom,  broken,  as 
we  could  faintly  see,  by  the  light  which,  en- 
tering from  other  openings  along  the  hillside, 
fell  here  and  these  on  some  hoary  pillar,  and 
finally  vanished  into  the  shade. 

It  is  needless  to  recall  what  achievements 
we  performed;  how,  with  true  boyish  hardi- 
hood, we  essayed  to  climb  the  pillars,  or 
crept  along  the  ledges  of  rock  that  overhung 
the  murky  water,  to  let  a  ponderous  stone 
fall  plump  into  the  depths,  and  mark  how 
long  the  bubbles  continued  to  rise  gurgling 
to  the  surface,  and  how  long  the  reverbera- 
tions of  the  plunge  came  floating  back  to  us 
from  the  far-off  recesses  of  the  cave.  Enough 
that,  having  satisfied  our  souls  with  the  won- 
ders below  ground,  we  set  out  to  explore 
those  above. 

"  But  where  are  the  petrified  forests  and 
fishes?"  cried  one  of  the  party.  "Here!" 
"Here!"  was  shouted  in  reply  from  the  top  of 
the  bank  by  two  of  the  ringleaders  of  the 
previous  Saturday.  Wre  made  for  the  heap 
of  broken  stones  whence  the  voices  had 
come,  and  there,  truly,  on  every  block  and 
every  fragment  the  fossils  met  our  eye,  some- 
times so  thickly  grouped  together  that  we 
could  barely  see  the  stone  on  which  they  lay. 
I  bent  over  the  mound,  and  the  first  frag- 
men^  that  turned  up  (my  first-found  fossil) 
was  one  that  excited  the  deepest  interest. 
The  commander-in-chief  of  the  first  excur- 
sion, who  was  regarded  (perhaps  as  much 
from  his  bodily  stature  as  for  any  other  rea- 
son) an  authority  on  these  questions,  pro. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


nounced  my  treasure-trove  to  be,  unmistaka- 
bly and  unequivocally,  a  fish.  True,  it 
seemed  to  lack  head  and  tail  and  fins;  the 
liveliest  fancy  amongst  us  hesitated  as  to 
which  were  the  scales;  and  in  after  years  I 
learned  that  it  was  really  a  vegetable — the 
seed-cone  or  catkin  of  a  large  extinct  kind  of 
club-moss ;  but,  in  the  meantime,  Tom  had 
declared  it  to  be  a  fish,  and  a  fish  it  must  as- 
suredly be. 

The  halo  that  broke  forth  from  the  Wizard's 
tomb  when  William  Deloraine  and  the 
Monk  of  St.  Mary's  heaved  at  midnight  the 
ponderous  stone  was  surely  not  brighter, 
certainly  not  so  benign  in  its  results,  as  the 
light  that  now  seemed  to  stream  into  my 
whole  being,  as  I  disinterred  from  their  stony 
folds  these  wondrous  relics.  Like  other 
schoolboys,  I  had,  of  course,  had  my  lessons 
on  geology  in  the  usual  meagre,  cut-and-dry 
form  in  which  physical  science  was  then 
taught  in  our  schools.  I  could  repeat  a 
"  Table  of  Formations,"  and  remember  the 
pictures  of  some  uncouth  monsters  on  the 
pages  of  our  text-books — one  with  goggle- 
eyes,  no  neck,  and  a  preposterous  tail  ;  an- 
other with  an  unwieldy  body,  and  no  tail  at 
all,  for  which  latter  d  feet  I  had  endeavored 
to  compensate  by  inserting  a  long  pipe  into 
'his  mouth,  receiving  from  our  master  (Iron- 
sides, we  called  him)  a  hearty  rap  across  the 
knuckles,  as  a  recompense  for  my  attention 
to  the  creature's  comfort.  But  the  notion 
that  these  pictures  were  the  representations  of 
actual,  though  now  extinct  monsters,  that  the 
matter-of-fact  details  of  our  text-books  really 
symbolized  living  truths,  and  were  not  in- 
vented solely  to  distract  the  brains  and  en- 
danger the  palms  of  schoolboys ;  nay,  that 
the  statements  which  seemed  so  dry  and  un- 
intelligible in  print  were  such  as  could  be 
actually  verified  by  our  own  eyes  in  nature, 
that  beneath  and  beyond  the  present  crea- 
tion, in  the  glories  of  which  we  revelled,  there 
lay  around  us  the  memorials  of  other  crea- 
tions not  less  glorious,  and  infinitely  older, 
and  thus  that  more,  immensely  more,  than 
our  books  or  our  teachers  taught  us  could  be 
learnt  by  looking  at  nature  for  ourselves — all 
this  was  strange  to  me.  It  came  now  for  the 
first  time  like  a  i  cvv  revelation,  one  that  has 
gladdened  my  life  ever  since 

We  worked  on  industriously  at  the  rubbish 
heap,  and  found  an  untold  sum  Of  wonders. 
The  human  mind  in  its  earlier  stages  dwells 
on  resemblances,  rather  than  on  differences. 
We  identified  what  we  found  in  the  stones 
with  that  to  which  it  most  nearly  approached 
ia  existing  nature,  and  though  many  an**or- 
ganism  turned  up  to  which  we  could  think  of 
no  analogue,  we  took  no  trouble  to  discrimi- 
nate vherein  it  differed  from  others.  Hence, 
to  our  imagination,  the  plants,  insects,  shells, 
and  fishes  of  our  rambles  met  us  again  in  the 
rock.  There  was  little  that  some  one  of  the 
party  could  not  explain,  and  thus  our  lime- 
*one  became  a  more  extraordinary  conglom- 


eration of  organic  remains,  I  will  venture  to 
say,  than  ever  perturbed  the  brain  of  a  geol- 
ogist. It  did  not  occur  at  the  time  to  any  of 
us  to  inquire  why  a  perch  came  to  be  em- 
balmed among  ivy  and  rose  leaves  ;  why  a 
sea-shore  whelk  lay  entwined  in  the  arms  of 
a  butterfly  ;  or  why  a  beetle  should  seem  to 
have  been  doing  his  utmost  to  dance  a  pir- 
ouette round  the  tooth  of  a  fish.  These  ques- 
tions came  all  to  be  asked  afterward,  and 
then  I  saw  how  egregiously  erroneous  had 
been  our  boyish  identifications  But,  in  the 
meantime,  knowing  little  of  the  subject,  I 
believed  everything,  and  with  implicit  faith 
piled  up  dragon-flies,  ferns,  fishes,  beetle 
cases,  violets,  sea-weeds,  and  shells. 

The  shadows  of  twilight  had  begun  10 
fall  while  we  still  bent  eagerly  over  the 
stones  The  sun,  with  a  fiery  glare,  had 
sunk  behind  the  distant  hills,  and  the  long 
lines  of  ruddy  light  that  mottled  the  sky  as 
he  went  down  h;id  crept  slowly  after  him,  and 
left  the  clouds  to  come  trooping  up  from  the 
east,  cold,  lifeless,  and  gray.  The  chill  of 
evening  now  began  to  fall  over  everything, 
save  the  spirits  of  the  treasure-seekers.  And 
yet  they  too  in  the  end  succumbed  The  ring 
of  the  hammer  became  less  frequent,  and  the 
shout  that  announced  the  discovery  of  each 
fresh  marvel  seldomer  broke  the  stillness  Oi 
the  scene.  And,  as  the  moanings  of  the 
night-wind  swept  across  the  fields,  and  rustled 
fitfully  among  the  withered  weeds  of  the 
quarry,  it  was  wisely  icsolved  that  we  should 
all  go  home. 

Then  came  the  packing  up.  Each  had 
amassed  a  pile  of  specimens,  well-nigh  as 
large  as  himself,  and  it- was  of  course  impos- 
sible to  carry  everything  away.  A  rapid  se- 
lection had  therefore  to  be  made.  And  oh! 
with  how  much  reluctance  were  we  compelled 
to  relinquish  many  of  the  stones,  the  dis- 
covery w.iereof  had  made  the  opposite  cavern 
ring  again  with  our  jubilee.  Not  one  of  us 
had  had  the  foresight  to  provide  himself  with 
a  bag,  so  we  stowed  away  the  treasures  in  our 
pockets.  Surely  practical  geometry  offers  not 
a  more  perplexing  problem  than  to  gauge  the 
capacity  of  these  p-,rts  of  a  schoolboy's  dress. 
So  we  loaded  ourselves  to  the  full,  and 
marched  along  with  the  fossils  crowded  into 
every  available  corner.  ' 

Despite  our  loads,  we  left  the  quarry  in 
high  glee.  Arranging  ourselves  instinctively 
into  a  concave  phalanx,  with  the  speaker  in 
the  centre,  we  resumed  a  tale  cf  thrilling  in- 
terest, that  had  come  to  its  most  tragic  part 
just  as  we  arrived  at  the  quarry  several  hours 
before.  It  lasted  all  the  way  back,  beguiling 
the  tedium,  darkness,  and  chill  of  the  four 
miles  that  lay  between  the  limeworks  and 
our  homes;  and  the  final  consummation  of 
the  story  was  artfully  reached  just  as  we 
came  to  the  door  of  the  first  of  the  party  who 
had  to  wish  us  good  night. 

Such  was  my  first  geological  excursion — 
a  simple  event  enough,  and  yet  the  turning- 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


point  in  a.  life.  Thenceforward  the  rocks  and 
their  fossil  treasures  formed  the  chief  sub- 
ject of  my  every-day  thoughts.  That  day 
stamped  my  fate,  and  I  became  a  geologist. 

And  yet,  I  had  carried  home  with  me  a 
strange  medley  of  errors  and  misconceptions. 
Nearly  every  fossil  we  found  was  incorrectly 
named.  We  b.lievedthat  we  had  discovered 
in  the  rock  organisms  which  had  really  never 
been  found  fossil  by  living  man.  So  far, 
therefore,  the  whole  lesson  had  to  be  un- 
learned, and  a  hard  process  the  unlearning 
proved  to  be.  But  (what  was  of  infinitely  more 
consequence  at  the  time  than  the  correct 
names,  or  even  the  true  natu  e  of  the  fossils) 
I  had  now  seen  fossils  with  my  own  eyes, 
and  struck  them  out  of  the  rock  with  my  own 
hand.  The  meaning  of  the  lessons  we  had 
been  taught  at  school  began  to  glimmer  upon 
me  ;  the  dry  bones  of  our  books  were  touched 
into  life  ;  the  idea  of  creations  anterior  toman 
seemed  clear  as  a  revealed  truth  ;  the  fishes 
and  plants  of  the  lime- quarry  must  have  lived 
and  died,  but  when  and  how  ?  was  it  possible 
for  rue  to  discover  ? 

These  quarries  proved  to  our  schoolboy 
band  a  nevei -ending  source  of  delight.  They 
formed  the  goal  of  many  a  Saturday  ramble. 
The  fishing-rod  and  basket  gave  place 
to  hammer  and  bag  ;  even  our  bats  and  balls 
and  "shinties"  were  not  unfrequently  for- 
saken. Our  love  of  legends,  too,  went  on  in- 
creasing, every  walk  giving  rise  to  two  or 
three  new  ones,  extemporized  for  the  occa- 
sion, and  of  course  forgotten  nearly  as  soon  as 
invented. 

Frequent  visits  made  us  better  acquainted, 
cot  only  with  the  quarries  but  with  the  quarry- 
men,  and  our  ideas  of  the  one  were  consider- 
ably influenced  by  our  impression  of  the  other. 
There  were,  I  remember,  three  very  distinct 
groups  of  workmen.  The  kilns  at  the  north 
end  were  tended  by  a  marked  set  of 
men.  They  seemed  to  be  mostly  Irishmen, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  unload  the  wagons 
of  limestone  into  the  kilns,  ar.d  keep  up  the 
supply  of  coal.  The  deep  pits  in  which  the 
rock  was  calcined  sent  up  an  intolerable  heat, 
and  gave  out  a  thick,  white,  stifling  smoke, 
that  curled  and  drifted  about  with  every  veer- 
ing of  the  wind.  Creeping  cautiously  to 
within  a  short  way  of  the  edge  of  these  fiery 
abysses,  we  could  mark  the  red-hot  rock 
cracking,  and  the  coal  flaming  up  from  below 
it.  The  Irishmen,  however,  would  march 
round  the  brink  without  a  trace  of  fear  or 
hesitation,  and  then,  after  the  firing  of  the 
kilns,  would  squat  themselves  in  the  lee  of  a 
wall,  an  uncouth,  sooty-faced  company,  each 
with  a  pipe,  or  else  an  oath,  in  his  mouth. 
We  never  cultivated  very  closely  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  kiln-men,  an  uneasy  apprehen- 
sion constantly  arising  that,  on  the  slightest 
provocation,  one  of  us  might  be  tumbled 
into  the  pit,  and  never  more  be  seen  or  heard 

Very  different  in  the  nature  of  their  work, 


and  equally  different  in  their  disposition,  were 
the  men  who  tended  the  wagons  which  the 
engine  drew  up  from  the  quarry.  They  had 
once  worked  below  ground,  but  had  now  an 
easier  post,  their  sole  duty  being  to  wheel  off 
the  full  wagons  as  they  came  up,  and  to  put 
empty  ones  on  the  rails  to  be  let  down  the 
slope  into  the  mouth  of  the  excavation.  One 
of  them  had  lost  a  leg  i:i  his  subterranean 
service,  and  was  therefore  somewhat  slow  in 
his  movements.  He  had  built  himself  a  rude 
hut,  w  th  a  fireplace  and  a  wooden  bench, and 
there  I  have  often  sat  with  him  and  listened 
to  his  eluc:dations  of  the  fossils,  and  his  ideas 
of  cosmogony  in  general.  He  was  never  at  a 
loss  for  an  explanation  of  any  of  the  numer- 
ous fossils  which  he  picked  out  of  the  lime- 
stone blocks  that  came  up  from  the  quarry. 
Some  of  his  fellow-workmen  maintained  that 
rock  and  fossil  were  all  created  together,  but 
my  friend  was  a  long  way  ahead  of  them.  He 
was  certain  that  the  plants  in  the  rock  must 
have  once  bloomed  green  on  the  land,  and  that 
the  fishes  must  have  darted  through  the  water. 
His  Bible  told  him  of  a  great  flood  that  had 
destroyed  mankind  and  covered  the  lands 
which  they  inhabited;  and  he  had  no  manner 
of  doubt  that  the  fishes  and  plants  of  the 
limestone  were  memorials  of  that  great  inun- 
dation, and  therefore  contemporaries  of  Noah 
and  the  ark. 

The  third,  and  by  much  the  most  numer- 
ous, group  of  workmen,  were  those  whose 
labor  went  on  underground — blasting  and 
quarrying  the  limestone,  and  then  wheeling 
it  in  wagons  along  the  galleries  to  the  mouth 
of  the  quarry,  whence  it  was  drawn  up  by 
the  engine.  Murky  and  grim,  each  with  a 
slouched  cap,  from  the  front  of  which  hung  a 
little  lamp,  they  formed,  nevertheless, a  merry 
company,  keeping  up  a  ceaseless  din  of  ham- 
mering in  these  gloomy  regions,  save  at  in- 
tervals when  a  blast-hole  was  charged  witb 
gunpowder,  and  then  all  hurried  away  behind 
some  of  the  huge  pillars  until  the  explosion 
was  over.  It  was  during  one  of  these  pauses 
that  I  first  made  their  acquaintance.  With 
one  or  two  companions,  I  had  been  prying1 
into  the  mouth  of  the  quarry,  and  venturing 
for  some  way  within,  until,  as  the  daylight 
grew  dim,  our  courage  failed,  and  we  re- 
turned. A  rumbling  noise  gradually  ap- 
proached, and  there  at  last  emerged  from  the 
darkness  a  full  wagon,  with  a  grimy  workman 
pushing  it  from  behind.  The  lamp  that 
flickered  on  his  forehead  added  greatly  to 
his  uncouthness  as  he  came  into  the  full 
light  of  day;  and  it  was  not  without  some 
hesitation  that  we  accepted  his  invitation  to 
hold  on  by  the  end  of  an  empty  truck,  and  re- 
turn with  him  into  the  innermost  recesses  of 
the  quarry.  It  was  a  long  jo  rney,  and, 
of  course,  save  for  the  feeble  glimmer  of  the 
lamp  in  his  cap,  in  total  darkness.  Eventu- 
ally we  began  to  hear  the  sound  of  clinking 
hammers,  and  then  in  the  dim  distance  we 
saw  little  lights  moving, to  and  fro.  Tb* 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


sounds  ceased  as  we  approached,  and  the 
lights  drew  nearer,  until  we  found  ourselves 
in  the  centre  of  a  group  of  begrimed  work- 
men, which  increased  in  numbers  every  mo- 
ment as  the  men  hurried  from  different  parts 
of  the  workings  to  be  out  cf  the  way  A  an 
impending  blast. 

They  gathered  round  us  and  examined  our 
hammers  as  well  as  the  specimens  we  had 
procured.  One  fossil  had  especially  puzzled 
us,  which  we  now  submitted  to  the  decision 
of  our  subterranean  acquaintances.  One  of 
them — styled  by  his  comrades  "the  Philoso- 
pher," a  tall,  wiry,  young  man — took  the 
stone,  and  after  eyeing  it  gravely  for  a  few 
seconds,  pronounced  it  to  be  an  oyster-shell. 
I  could  see  no  resemblance  on  which  to  found 
such  a  decision  ;  but  the  dictum  of  "Lang 
Willie  "  seemed  to  settle  the  matter  finally  in 
the  eyes  of  the  quarrymen.  Seating  himself 
on  a  large  prostrate  block  of  limestone,  and 
stuffing  his  short  pipe  into  his  pocket,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  point  out  to  the  company  the  evi- 
dence that  the  scene  of  their  labors  had  once 
been  under  the  sea.  There  was  the  oyster- 
shell  to  begin  with.  Surely  none  of  us  could 
dispute- fhat  oysters  only  lived  in  the  sea,  and 
therefore,  as  the  oyster  occurred  in  the  quarry, 
the  quarry  must  once  have  formed  part  of  the 
sea-bottom.  Then  there  were  the  scales, 
bones,  and  teeth  of  fishes,  very  much  longer 
than  trout  or  any  "  siclike  "  fresh-water  fish, 
and  these  must  have  dwelt  in  the  sea.  Be- 
sides this,  he  sometimes  noticed  a  white 
powder  crusting  the  rock  like  a  sprinkling  of 
salt,  and  the  stone  had  occasionally  what 
Trinculo  would  have  called  "an  ancient  and 
fishlike  smell, "that  to  Willie's  mind  clearly 
bespoke  the  former  presence  of  the  sea.  All 
this  and  more  was  told  at  considerable  length, 
with  many  a  flourish  of  the  fist,  to  the  great 
apparent  comfort  and  satisfaction  of  his 
brother  workmen. 

And  there  was  some  truth  in  the  reasoning. 
His  facts,  indeed,  would  not  stand  a  very 
close  scrutiny  ;  even  the  little  experience  I 
had  at  the  time  enabled  me  to  see  their  eno- 
neousness  ;  but  his  deductions;  had  the 
premises  been  sound,  were  fair  enough. 
They  showed,  at  least,  a  habit  of  thought- 
fulness  and  observation  much  rarer  among 
this  class  of  men  than  we  should  expect  to 
find  it. 

Such  were  my  earliest  clinical  instructors 
in  geology.  With  the  help  of  their  crude  no- 
tions, added  to  our  own  boyish  fancies,  those 
of  our  number  who  cared  to  think  out  the 
subject  at  all  strove  to  solve  the  problems  that 
the  quarry  suggested.  I  cannot  recall  the  pro- 
cess of  inquiry  among  my  comrades.  But  I 
well  remember  how  it  went  on  with  myself. 
Our  early  identifications  of  all  that  we  saw  in 
the  rock  with  lomething  we  had  seen  in  living 
nature  were  unconsciously  abandoned.  I 
gradually  came  to  learn  the  true  character  of 
most  of  the  fossils,  and  recognized,  too,  that 
there  was  much  which  I  did  not  understand, 


but  might  fairly  attempt  to  discover.  The 
first  love  of  rarities  and  curiosities  passed 
away,  and  in  its  place  there  sprang  up  a 
settled  belief  that  in  these  gray  rocks  there 
lay  a  hidden  story,  if  one  could  only  get  at 
the  key. 

There  was  no  one  within  our  circie  of  ac- 
quaintance from  whom  any  practical  instruc- 
tion in  the  subject  could  be  obtained. 
Probably  this  was  a  piece  of  good  fortune  for 
those  of  us  who  had  the  courage  to  persevere 
in  the  quest  for  knowledge.  I  can  remember 
the  long  communings  we  had  as  to  the  nature 
of  this  or  that  organism,  and  its  bearing 
on  the  history  of  the  limestone.  The 
text-books  were  of  little  service.  So,  thrown 
back  upon  ourselves,  we  allowed  our  fancy  to 
supply  what  we  could  obtain  in  no  other  way. 
The  ferns  and  other  land-plants  found  in  the 
limestone,  together  with  the  minute  cyprids, 
of  which  the  rock  seemed  in  some  places 
almost  wholly  composed,  and  the  scales, 
bones,  and  teeth  of  ganoid  fishes,  indicated, 
as  far  as  we  could  learn,  that  the  deposit  had 
accumulated  in  fresh  water,  perhaps  in  a  lake 
or  in  the  estuary  of  a  river.  But  of  course  it 
was  natural  that  we  should  try  to  discover 
what  might  have  been  the  general  aspect  of 
the  country  when  the  animals  and  plants  of 
the  limestone  were  alive.  We  asked  our- 
selves if  the  same  hills  existed  then  as  now  ; 
if  perchance  the  old  river  that  swept  over  the 
site  of  the  quarry  took  its  rise  among  yonder 
pastoral  glens ;  if  the  same  sea  rolled  in  the 
distance  then  as  now,  curling  white  along 
the  same  green  shore.  Happily  ignorant  of 
how  far  we  had  here  ventured  beyond  our 
depth,  it  was  not  until  after  much  question- 
ing and  disappointment  that  I  found  these 
problems  to  require  years  of  patient  research. 
The  whole  country  for  many  miles  round  had 
yet  to  be  explored,  and  minute  observations 
to  be  made  before  even  an  approximation  to 
a  reliable  answer  could  be  given.  But  a  boy's 
fancy  is  an  admirable  substitute  for  the  want 
of  facts.  I  did  feel  at  times  a  little  sorry 
that  no  evidence  turned  up  on  which  to 
ground  my  restoration  of  the  ancient  topog- 
raphy of  the  district,  or  rather  that  such  a 
world  of  work  seemed  to  rise  before  me  ere  I 
could  obtain  the  evidence  that  was  needed. 
But  the  feeling  did  not  last  long.  And  so  I 
conjured  up  the  most  glorious  pictures  of  an 
ancient  world,  where,  as  in  the  land  of  the 
lotus-eaters,  it  was  always  afternoon,  and  one 
could  dream  away  life  among  isles  clothed 
with  ferns  and  huge  club-mosses,  and  washed 
by  lakes  and  rivers  that  lay  without  a  tipple, 
save  now  and  then  when  some  glittering 
monster  leapt  out  into  the  sunlight,  and  fell 
back  again  with  a  sullen  plunge. 

Happy  afternoons  were  these  !  To  steal 
away  alone  among  the  cornfields,  and  feast 
he  eye  on  hill  and  valley,  with  their  green 
slopes  and  bosky  woods  and  gray  feudal 
towers,  and  on  the  distant  sea  with  the  whit* 
sails  speckled  over  its  broad  expanse  of  blue. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


And  then  when  every  part  of  that  well-loved  | 
scene  had  been  taken  in,  to  let  loose  the  fancy 
and  allow  the  landscape  to  fade  like  a  dis- 
solving view  until  every  feature  had  fled,  and 
there  arose  again  the  old  vanished  lakes,  and 
rivers,  and  palmy  isles. 


fully  a  much  more  matured  imagination 
than  that  of  boyhood  :  I  have  often  since 
visited  it,  and  always  with  fresh  interest.  It 
has  quiet,  tree-shaded  nooks,  where,  the  din 
of  the  workmen  being  hushed  by  distance, 
one  may  sit  alone  and  undisturbed  for  hours, 


About  two  miles  from  the  spot  where  we  |  gathering  up  from  the  grans  grown  mounds 


began  our  geological  labors  lay  another 
quarry,  from  which  lime  had  been  extracted. 
When  we  first  heard  of  it  from  our  one- 
legged  friend  at  the  engine-house,  we  set  it 
down  as  a  continuation  of  his  limework,  the 
caverns  of  which  seemed  to  run  on  under- 
ground to  an  indefinite  length.  There  seemed 
nothing  unlikely  in  the  identification  of  two 
limestones  only  two  miles  distant  from  each 
-other  as  part  of  one  seam.  So  a  Saturday 
afternoon  was  spent  in  the  investigation  of 
this  second  quarry. 

Like  the  first,  it  had  been  opened  along  the 
slope  of  a  gentle  hill,  and  the  excavations 
presented  to  our  view  a  long  line  of  civerns 
similar  to  those  we  had  seen  before.  But  the 
quarry  was  disused,  and  appeared  to  have 
been  so  for  many  years.  The  roof  had  fallen 
down  in  many  places,  the  mouths  of  the 
caves  had  become  well-nigh  choked  up  with 
rubbish  and  tangled  gorse,  and  the  heaps  of 
d<!b>is,  so  fresh  and  clean  in  our  own  quarry, 
were  here  overgrown  with  gray  lichens  and 
green  moss,  damp  and  old.  The  kilns  had 
not  been  fired  for  many  a  day.  The  cracks 
and  rents  that  had  fissured  their  walls,  from 
the  fierce  heat  that  once  blazed  within,  were 
yawning  hideously,  as  if  a  strong  gale  would 
nuri  them  with  a  crash  into  the  half-buried 
cavern  below.  Only  one  human  habitation 
was  near,  a  small  moss-grown  cottage,  where 
lived  a  little  old  woman,  her  skin  brown  and 
shriveled  as  parchment,  who  was  busy  hang- 
ing out  linen  on  a  neighboring  hedge.  Alto- 
gether, therefore,  this  second  quarry  had  a 
very  grave-like,  antique  look,  and  we  entered 
it  with  a  kind  of  ooyish  wonder  whether  so 
different  a  scene  would  yield  us  the  same 
treasures  as  we  had  found  so  abundantly  only 
two  miles  off. 

It  required  but  a  cursory  glance  to  show 
us  that  the  two  limestones  were  not  the 
same.  They  differed  in  color  and  texture;  but 
still  more  in  their  fossil  contents.  We 
searched  long  but  unsuccessfully  for  traces 
of  the  plants,  or  cyprids,  or  fish,  so  common 
at  our  first  quarry.  In  their  stead  we  ham- 


been  exposed  to  the  weather  for  many  a 
year.     Its  steep  sides  are  crowded  with 


delicate  lamp-shells  and  sea-mats,  crinoids, 
cup-corals,  and  many  other  denizens  of  the 
palaeozoic  ocean.  A  mass  of  rock,  from 
which  the  rest  has  been  quarried  away.stands 
in  a  secluded  coppice,  overlooking  the  sea,  as 
if  to  show  how  thick  the  seam  was  before  the 
quarrymen  began  to  remove  it.  This  mass 
has 

long  ye 

stone-lilies,  corals,  and  shells,  which  stand 
out  in  relief  like  an  arabesque  fretwork.  The 
marks  of  the  quarrymen's  tools  have  passed 
away,  and  a  gray  hue  of  age  has  spread  over 
the  rock,  aided  by  patches  of  lichen  and 
moss,  or  by  tufts  of  fern,  that  here  and  there 
have  found  a  nestling  place.  For  here,  as 
always,  where  man  has  scarped  and  wounded 
the  surface  of  the  globe  on  which  he  dwells, 

"  Nature,  softening  and  concealing. 
Is  busy  with  a  hand  of  healing. 

From  this  point,  between  the  overhanging 
branches,  our  schoolboy  band  could  watch 
the  lights  and  shadows  flitting  athwart  the 
distant  hills,  the  breeze  sweeping  the  neigh- 
boring sea  into  fitful  sheets  of  darker  blue, 
and  the  sails  forever  passing  to  and  fro. 

And  then,  turning  round,  there  rose  behind 
us  this  strange  wall  of  rock — the  bottom  of 
an  older  sea,  with  its  dead  organisms  piled 
by  thousands  over  each  other.  I  c  in  never 
forget  the  impiession  made  on  my  boyish 
mind  by  the  realization  of  this  tremendous 
contrast  in  scenery  and  life,  and  of  the  vast 
gulf  of  time  between  the  living  world  and 
the  dead.  It  made  a  kind  of  epoch  in  one's 
life.  My  first  afternoon  in  this  old  lime- 
quarry  was  of  more  service  at  this  time  than 
any  number  of  books  and  lectures. 

The  recollection  of  these  early  days  has 
often  since  impressed  me  with  a  sense  of  the 
enormous  advantage  which  a  boy  or  girl  may 
derive  from  any  pursuit  that  stimulates  the 
magination.  My  boyish  geology  was  ab- 
surdly, grotesquely  erroneous.  I  should  have 
failed  ignominiou«ly  at  an  examination 
which  would  be  thought  easy  enough  at 


mered  out  an  abundant  series  of  quite  j  a  modern  elementary  science  class.  But  I 
different  fossils,  all  quite  new  to  us.  Of  j  had  gained  for  myself  what  these  science 
course,  in  our  attempts  to  discover  the  na-  I  classes  so  seldom  infuse  into  the  pupils — an 


ture  and  habitats  of  these  objects,  we  wan- 
dered quite  as  far  from  the  truth  as  we  had 
done  b  fore.  After  much  blundering  we 
eventually  ascertained  that  the  new  treasures 
included  corals,  stone-lilies  and  shells — all 
organisms  of  the  sea-floor.  But  our  most 
instructive  collection  of  these  relics  of  marine 
life  were  obtained  from  a  much  larger  quarry 

some  twelve  miles  away.       This  more  distant    zoological  system,  or  specimens  to  take  up  so 
Ideality   was    calculated   to  impress   power-    much  room  in  a  museum,  but  as  the  remains 


enthusiastic  love  of  the  subject,  and  a  deter- 
mination to  get  somehow  at  the  living  truth 
of  which  the  rocks  are  the  records.  I  had 
learnt  to  treat  fossils  not  as  mere  dead  min- 
eral matter,  or  as  mere  curiosities  valuable  in 
proportion  to  their  rarity  or  perfection  of 
preservation,  but  as  enduring  records  '  of 
former  life;  not  as  species  to  fill  a  place  in  a 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


of  once  living  organisms,  which  formed  part 
of  a  creation  as  real  as  that  in  which  we  our- 
selves pass  our  existence.  They  were  wit- 
nesses of  early  ages  in  our  planet's  history, 
and  fvere  ready  to  tell  their  tale  if  one  could 
only  (earn  how  to  read  it  from  them.  Few 
occupations  possess  greater  power  of  fasci- 
nation than  to  marshal  all  those  witnesses  and 
elicit  from  them  the  evidence  which  allows  us 
to  restore  one  after  another  the  successive 
conditions  through  which  the  solid  land  has 
passed.  To  realize  how  this  is  done,  and  to 
take  part  in  the  doing  of  it,  is  for  a  boy  a 
lifelong  advantage.  He  may  never  become 
a  geologist  in  any  sense,  but  he  gains  such 
an  enlarged  view  of  nature,  and  such  a  vivid 
conception  of  the  long  evolution  through 
which  the  present  condition  of  things  has 
been  reached,  as  can  be  mastered  in  no  other 
way.  A  single  excursion  under  sympathetic 
and  intelligent  guidance  to  an  instructive 
quarry,  river  ravine,  or  sea-shore,  is  worth 
many  books  and  a  long  course  of  systematic 
lectures. 


II. 
"THE  OLD  MAN  OF  HOY." 

The  tidal  wave  of  travelers,  which,  thanks 
to  railroads  and  steamboats,  pours  northward 
over  the  country  every  summer,  even  as  far 
as  John  o'  Groat's,  has  as  yet  hardly  risen 
much  beyond  that  utmost  shore.  The  tourist 
stops  short  at  the  Pentland  Firth;  indeed, 
when  he  reaches  its  bare  treeless  coast,  and 
finds  that  there  is  really  no  traditional  house 
at  John  o'  Groat's  (though  a  good  inn,  with 
careful  host  and  kindly  hostess,  should  tempt 
him  to  rest  there  a  while),  he  is  in  a  hurry 
to  get  back  by  daylight  to  the  busy  hum 
of  men  in  the  hyperborean  city  of  Wick  or  of 
Thurso,  and  as  eager  to  flit  southward  again 
next  morning.  He  makes  a  fatal  mistake, 
however;  for  he  misses  the  very  points  which 
it  would  have  been  worth  his  while  to  make 
the  whole  of  his  long  journey  to  see.  Let 
him,  for  instance,  take  up  his  quarters  for  a 
day  or  two  by  the  side  of  the  Pentland  Firth, 
and  spend  his  hours  watching  from  one  of  its 
grim  cliffs  the  race  of  its  tideway.  Nowhere 
else  round  the  British  I  lands  can  he  look 
down  on  such  a  sea.  It  seems  to  rush  and 
roar  past  him  like  a  vast  river,  but  with  a  flow 
some  three  times  swifter  than  our  most  rapid 
rivers.  Such  a  broad  breast  of  rolling,  eddying, 
foaming  water!  Even  when  there  is  no  wind, the 
tide  ebbs  and  flows  in  this  way,  pouring  now 
eastward,  now  westward,  as  the  tidal  wave 
rises  and  falls.  But  if  he  should  be  lucky 
enough  to  come  in  for  a  gale  of  wind  (and 
they  are  not  unknown  there  in  summer,  as  he 
will  probably  learn),  let  him  by  no  means  fail 
to  take  up  his  station  on  Duncansbay  Head, 
or  at  the  point  of  Mey.  The  shelter  of  a 
flagstone  "dyke"  and  a  waterproof  will  save 
him  from  any  ulterior  consequences  of  the 


exposure,  or  should  he  have  some  misgivings 
on  this  point,  he  will  find,  when  he  gets  back 
to  the  shelter  of  the  inn  at  John  o'  Groat's, 
that  mine  host  has  sundry  specifics  of  well- 
tried  potency,  at  the  very  sight  and  taste  of 
which  rheums,  catarrhs,  and  the  rest  of  that 
tribe  of  ailments  at  once  decamp.  Ensconced 
in  his  "  neuk,"  he  can  quietly  try  to  fix  in  his 
mind  a  picture  of  what  is  before  him.  He 
will  choose  if  he  can  a  time  when  the  tide  is 
coming  up  against  the  wind.  The  water  no 
longer  looks  like  the  eddying  current  of  a 
mighty  river.  It  rather  resembles  the  surging 
of  rocky  rapids.  Its  surface  is  one  vast  sheet 
of  foam  and  green  yeasty  waves.  Every 
now  and  then  a  huge  billow  rears  itself  im- 
patiently above  the  rest,  tossing  its  sheets  of 
spray  in  the  face  of  the  wind,  which  scatters 
them  back  into  the  boiling  flood.  Here  and 
there,  owing  to  the  configuration  of  the  bot- 
tom, this  turmoil  waxes  so  furious  that  a 
constant  dance  of  towering  breakers  is  kept 
up.  Such  are  the  terrible  ' '  Roost  of  Dun- 
cansbay, "  and  the  broken  water  grimly  termed 
the  "Merry  Men  of  Mey."  With  a  great 
gale  from  the  northeast,  or  southeast,  the 
shelter  even  of  the  stone  wall  on  Duncansbay 
Head  would  be  of  little  avail.  For  solid 
sheets  of  water  rush  up  the  face  of  the  cliffs 
for  more  than  a  hundred  feet,  and  pour  over 
the  top  in  such  volume  that  it  is  said  they 
have  actually  been  intercepted  on  the  land- 
ward side  by  a  dam  across  a  little  valley,  and 
have  been  used  to  turn  a  mill.  Should  the 
meditative  tourist  be  overtaken  by  such  a 
gale,  he  will  find  shelter  in  the  quaint  cottage 
of  the  kind-hearted  but  hard-headed  John 
Gibson,  who,  perched  like  a  sea-eagle  at  the 
head  of  a  tremendous  chasm  in  the  cliffs,  can 
spin  many  a  yarn  about  the  tempests  of  the 
north. 

No  one  can  see  such  scenes  without  real- 
izing as  he  probably  has  never  done  before, 
the  restless  energy  of  nature.  His  eyes  are 
opened.  He  feels  how  wind  and  rain,  wave 
and  tide,  are  leagued  together,  as  it  were,  in 
spite  of  their  apparent  antagonism,  to  batter 
down  the  shores.  Everywhere  he  witnesses 
proofs  of  their  prowess.  Tall  gaunt  stacks 
rise  out  of  the  waves  in  front  of  the  cliffs  of 
which  they  once  formed  a  part.  -Yawning 
rents  run  through  them  from  summit  to  base  ; 
fheir  sides  are  frayed  into  cusp  and  pinnacle 
that  seem  ready  to  topple  over  when  the  next 
storm  assails  them  ;  their  surf-beaten  base- 
ments are  pierced  with  caverns  and  tunnels 
into  which  the  surge  is  forever  booming.  On 
the  solid  cliffs  behind,  the  same  tale  of  war- 
fare is  inscribed.  But  the  traveler  who  has 
seen  so  much  will  perforce  desire  to  see  more. 
From  his  perch  on  the  southern  side  of  the 
foaming  Pentland  Firth  he  looks  across  to  the 
distant  hills  of  Hoy — the  only  hills,  indeed, 
which  are  visible  from  the  monotonous  moor- 
lands of  northern  Caithness,  save  when  from 
j  some  higher  eminence  one  catches  the  blue 
'  outlines  of  Morven  on  the  southern  sky-line. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


The  Orkney  Islands  are  otherwise  as  tame 
and  as  flat  as  Caithness.  But  in  Hoy  they 
certainly  make  amends  for  their  generally 
featureless  surface.  Yet  even  there  it  is  not 
the  interior,  hilly  though  it  be,  but  the 
western  coast-cliffs,  which  redeem  the  whole  of 
the  far  north  of  Scotland  from  the  charge  of 
failure  in  picturesque  and  impressive 
scenery.  One  looks  across  the  Pent  land 
Firth  and  marks  how  the  flat  islands  of  the 
Orkney  group  rise  from  its  northern  side  as 
a  long  low  line,  until  westwards  they  mount 
into  the  rounded  heights  of  Hoy,  and  how 
these  again  plunge  in  a  range  of  prec  pices 
into  the  Atlan  ic.  Yeltow  and  red  in  hue, 
these  marvelous  cliffs  gleam  across  the  wa- 
ter as  if  the  sunlight,  always  bathed  them. 
They  brighten  a  gray  day,  and  gray  days 
are  only  too  common  in  the  northern  summer; 
on  a  sunny  forenoon,  or  still  better  on  a  clear 
evening,  when  the  sun  ir,  sinking  beneath  the 
western  waters,  they  glow  and  burn,  yet  be- 
hind such  a  dreamy  sea-born  haze,  that  the 
onlooker  can  hardly  believe  himself  to  be  in 
the  far  north,  but  recalls  perhaps  memories  cf 
Capri  and  Sorrento,  and  the  blue  Mediter- 
ranean. Looking  at  them  from  the  mainland, 
we  are  soon  struck  by  one  feature  at  their 
western  end.  A  strange  square  tower-like 
projection  rises  behind  the  last  and  lowest 
spur  of  cliffs  wl-  ich  descends  into  the  sea. 
We  may  walk  mile  after  mile  along  the  Caith- 
ness shore.and  still  that  mysterious  mass  keeps  j 
its  place.  As  we  move  westAard,  however, 
the  higher  cliffs  behind  open  out,  and  we  can 
see  on  a  clear  day  with  the  naked  eye  that  the 
mass  is  a  huge  column  of  rock  rising  in  ad- 
vance of  the  cliff.  It  is  the  "Old  Man  of 
Hoy" — a  notable  landmark,  well  deserving 
its  fame. 

Let  no  tourist  who  has  journeyed  as  far  as 
Thurso  hesitate  to  cross  the  Firth  and  reach 
Stromness  in  Orkney.  He  will  find  a  steam- 
er ready  to  carry  him  thither  in  a  few  hours, 
and  in  the  voyage  will  pass  close  under  the 
grandest  cliffs  in  the  British  Islands.  Above 
all,  he  will  make  the  personal  acquaintance 
-of  the  Old  Man,  or  at  least  will  be  brought  so 
near  as  to  conceive  a  very  profound  respect 
for  him. 

The  Old  Man  is  a  column  of  yellow  and 
red  sandstone  more  than  600  feet  high.  It 
stands  well  in  front  of  the  cliff,  with  which, 
however,  it  is  still  connected  by  a  low  ridge 
strewn  with  blocks.  Doubtless  one  main 
cause  of  its  impressiveness  lies  in  the  fact 
that  its  summit  is  considerably  higher  than 
the  cliff  behind  it.  Thus  it  stands  out  against 
the  sky  even  when  seen  from  a  distance.  Its 
base  is  washed  on  three  sides  by  the  waves, 
which  rise  and  fall  over  a  low  reef  running 
out  from  underneath  the  base  of  the  column. 
Formerly  a  -huge  buttress,  like  the  Giant's 
Leg  of  Bressay  in  Shetland,  used  to  project 
into  the  sea.  But  it  has  been  swept  away,  and 
for  many  years  the  Old  Man,  with  the  sup- 
port of  but  one  leg,  has  had  to  keep  his 


watch  and  wage  his  unequal  battle  with  the 
elements. 

Unless  the  ground-swell  be  too  heavy,  the 
steamboat  usually  keeps  close  enough  to  the 
base  of  the  great  precipices  to  allow  the 
masonry  of  this  wonderful  obelisk  to  be  dis- 
tinctly seen.  Like  the  cliff  behind,  it  is  built 
up  of  successive  bars  of  sandstone  forming 
portions  of  horizontal  or  very  gently  inclined 
strata.  Its  base,  however,  rests  on  a  pedestal 
of  different  materials,  consisting  of  two  well- 
defined  bands,  both  of  which  can  be  traced 
stretching  landward  and  passing  under  the 
base  of  the  cliff.  The  lower  of  these  two 
bands  is  plainly  marked  by  lines  of  parallel 
stratification  inclined  at  a  considerably  higher 
angle  than  Vhe  «.1ip  of  the  sandstones,  and 
evidently  composed  of  something  quite  differ- 
ent from  them.  Viewed  thus  from  the  sea  in. 
a  brief  and  passing  way,  the  whole  structure 
can  be  recognized  as  composed  of  three  dis- 
tinct portions.  The  main  pillar,  of  pale  red 
and  yellow  sa'idstone,  rests  unconformably 
upon  a  platform  composed  of  two  layers,  of 
which  the  uppermost  is  j  dark  band  of  seem- 
ingly structureless  rock,  while  the  lower  is 
formed  of  dark  slate-colored  tilted  strata. 

It  is  only  when  one  lands  on  the  island  of 
Hoy,  and  examines  the  cliffs  in  detail,  that 
the  true  nature  and  history  of  the  three  bars 
of  the  Old  Man  can  be  made  out.  The 
yellow  and  red  sandstones  of  the  column  and 
the  cliff  behind  it  are  then  found  to  present 
the  ordinary  characters  of  the  Upper  Old 
Red  Sandstone,  to  which  they  are  with  proba- 
bility referred,  though  as  y^t  they  have 
yielded  no  fossils.  Irregularly  alternating  in 
thick  and  thinner  beds,  they  are  rent  by  in- 
numerable perpendicular  joints.  By  means 
of  these  divisional  lines,  slice  after  slice  tails 
away  from  the  face  of  the  cliffs,  which  thus 
maintain  their  precipitous  front  towards  the 
Atlantic.  'Except  in  regard  to  their  scenic 
features,  these  sandstones,  however,  are  less 
full  of  interest  than  the  two  bars  comprising 
the  Old  Man's  pedestal.  The  upper  bar  con- 
sists  of  a  band  of  dark  amygdaloidal  lava 
with  a  slaggy  surface.  The  same  rock 
appears  elsewhere,  rising  out  from  beneath 
the  sandstones  of  the  precipices,  particularly 
at  the  northwestern  headland,  where  it  con- 
sists of  three  or  more  distinct  bands  with  well 
sfratified  volcanic  tuffs.  To  the  northeast 
of  that  headland,  on  a  tract  of  lower  ground 
intervening  between  the  base  of  the  hills  and 
the  edge  of  the  sea,  several  well-marked  vol- 
canic "  necks  "  or  pipes  occur,  representing 
some  of  the  vents  from  which  the  streams  of 
lava  and  showers  of  ash  were  poured  The 
complete  interstratification  of  the  beds  of 
erupted  material  with  the  lower  portion  of 
the  sandstones  proves  that  the  volcanic  action 
showed  itself  at  the  beginning  .of  the  deposi- 
tion of  the  Upper  Old  Red  Sandstone  in  this 
region.  Another  little  vent  may  be  observed 
on  the  Caithness  coast,  near  John  o*  Groat's 
House.  Perhaps  some  may  still  remain  to  be 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


noticed  among  the  central  and  northern  mem- 
bers of  the  Orkney  Islands.  It  seems  to 
have  been  a  singular  and  local  outburst  of 
volcanic  energy  during  Upper  Old  Red  Sand- 
stone times — the  only  one  yet  discovered  to 
the  north  of  the  Highlands.  The  uppermost 
bar,  then,  of  the  pedestal  on  which  the  Old 
Man  has  taken  his  stand  is  a  massive  sheet  of 
lava. 

The  lower  bar  belongs  to  a  very  different 
period,  and  has  a ,  totally  dissimilar  history. 
Its  component  strata  have  been  upturned  and 
worn  away  before  the  eruption  of  the  lava, 
which  had  rolled  over  their  broken  and  bared 
edges.  On  looking  more  closely  into  these 
strata,  which,  even  seen  from  the  sea,  present 
such  a  contrast  in  disposition  to  the  lava  and 
overlying  sandstones,  we  find  that  they 
consist  of  dark,  thin-bedded  sandstones, 
shales,  and  impure  limestones.  In  short, 
they  are  a  portion  of  the  great  series  of  de- 
posits known  as  the  Caithness  flagstones  of 
the  Lower  Old  Red  Sandstone.  From  many 
of  their  exposed  surfaces  shin  ng,  jet-black 
scales,  bones,  and  teeth  of  the  characteristic 
fishes  of  these  flagstones  project.  What  a 
suggestive  picture  of  the  imperfection  of  the 
geological  record  is  presented  to  us  by  some 
of  these  weather-beaten  or  surf-worn  sheets 
of  rock  !  We  pick  up  from  their  crannies 
broken  whelks,  nullipores,  and  corallines, 
tossed  up  by  the  last  storm  from  the  zones  of 
life  now  tenanting  the  sea  below  us.  The 
limpet  and  sea-anemone,  the  whelk  and  bar- 
nacle, are  clinging  to  the  hardened  sand  over 
which,  while  it  was  still  soft,  the  Osteolepis 
and  Coccoteus  and  their  bone-cased  brethren 
disported  in  the  ancient  northern  lake  of 
Lower  Old  Red  Sandstone  times.  Nay,  we 
may  now  and  then  watch  a  living  mollusk 
creeping  over  the  cuirass  of  a  palaeozoic  fish. 
Yet  who  can  realize  the  lapse  of  time  which 
here  separates  the  living  from  the  dead  ? 

Below  and  beyond  the  horizon  of  the  flag- 
stones no  evidence  among  the  Hoy  cliffs  re- 
mains to  lead  us.  But  in  the  neighboring 
isles  of  Pomona  and  Gremsa,  bosses  of  crys- 
talline rocks — granite,  gneiss,  and  sch  sts — 
project  from  under  the  flagstones,  and  are 
wrapped  round  with  conglomerates,  doubt- 
less representing  islets  with  the  shore-gravel 
heaped  up  around  them  when  they  rose  out 
of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  lake. 

So  iruch  for  the  materials  out  of  which  the 
Old  Man  has  been  carved.  And  now  a  few 
words  as  to  the  process  of  carving.  If  the 
traveler  who  has  reached  Stromness  finds 
himself  with  even  one  spare  day  at  his  dis- 
posal, he  cannot  employ  it  to  more  conspicu- 
ous advantage  than  by  taking  a  boat  with  a 
couple  of  stalwart,  Norse-like  Orcadian  boat- 
men, crossing  the  strait  to  Hoy,  and  ascend- 
ing that  island  by  the  Cam  and  the  north- 
western headland,  with  its  rock-grit  corry  and 
glacier-moraines,  until  he  finds  himself  at  the 
summit  of  the  great  western  precipice,  with 
th«  surface  of  the  surging  Atlantic  some  1 , 300 


|  feet  below  him.  The  scene  tells  its  own  tale 
i  of  ceaseless  waste,  and  needs  no  lecture  or 
text-book  for  its  comprehension.  Pinnacle! 
and  turrets  of  richly  tinted  yellow  and  red 
sandstone  roughen  the  upper  edge  of  the 
cliff,  often  fretted  into  the  strangest  shapes, 
and  worn  into  such  perilous  narrowness  of 
base  that  they  seemed  doomed'to  go  headlong 
down  info  the  gulf  below  when  the  next 
tempest  sweeps  across  from  the  west.  But 
tresses,  sorely  rifted  and  honey-combed,  lean 
against  the  main  cliff  as'if  •  to  prop  it  up  ;  but 
separated  from  it  by  the  yawning  fissures 
which  will  surely  widen  until  they  wedge  off 
the  projecting  masses,  and  strip  huge  slices 
from  the  face  of  the  cliff.  One  see-,  as  it 
were,  every  step  in  the  progress  of  degrada- 
tion. It  is  by  this  prolonged  splitting  and 
slicing  and  fretting  that  the  precipice  has 
been  made  to  recede,  and  has  acquired  its 
shattered  but  picturesque  contours.  The 
Old  Man  is  thus  a  monument  of  the  retreat 
and  destruction  of  the  cliffs  of  which  it  once 
formed  a  part.  To  what  accidental  circum- 
stance it  may  have  owed  its  isolation  cannot 
be  affirmed  with  certainty.  But  it  shares  in 
the  prevalent  decay.  Every  year  must  in- 
sensibly tell  upon  its  features. 

On  the  caimest  day  some  motion  of  air  al- 
ways plays  about  the  giddy  crest  of  these 
precipices,  and  a  surge  with  creaming  lines  of 
white  foam  sweeps  around  their  base.  But 
when  a  westerly  gale  sets  in,  the  scene  is 
said  to  be  wholly  indescribable.  The  cliffs  are 
then  enveloped  in  driving  spray  torn  from  the 
solid  sheets  of  water  which  rush  up  the  w?jls 
of  rock  for  a  hundred  feet  or  more,  and  roll 
back  into  thousands  of  tumultuous  waterfalls. 
The  fo-ce  of  the  wind  is  such  as  actually  to 
loosen  the  weathered  parts  of  the  rock  and 
dislodge  them.  Thus  along  the  mossy  sur- 
face of  the  slope,  which  ascends  inland  from 
the  edge  of  the  cliff,  large  flat  pieces  of 
naked  stone  may  be  picked  up  by  scores  lying 
on  the  heather  and  coarse  grass,  whither  they 
have  been  whirled  up  from  the  shattered  crags 
by  successive  gusts  of  the  storms. 

The  destruction  of  this  coast-line  has  not 
yet,  however,  wholly  effaced  traces  of  other 
powers  of  waste  which  have  long  since  passed 
away.  On  the  very  edge  of  the  cliff,  to  the 
southeast  of  the  Old  Man,  some  well-pre- 
served striations  on  the  sandstone  point  to 
the  movement  of  the  ice-sheet  of  the  glacial 
period  across  even  the  hilly  island  of  Hoy  in 
a  N.W.  and  S.E.  direction.  Again,  in  the 
green  corry  at  the  Cam  of  Hoy,  some  beau- 
tifully perfect  little  moraines  remain  to  show 
that  after  the  great  land  ice  had  subsided  the 
snow-fall  in  these  northern  regions  continued 
heavy  enough  to  nourish  in  so  small  an 
island  as  Hoy  groups  of  valley  glaciers. 
Though  the  general  form  of  the  hills  and  val- 
leys remains  now  much  as  it  was  when  the 
last  lingering  glacier  melted  away,  there  have 
been  stupendous  changes  since  then  in  the 
shaping  of  the  precipices.  At  that  time  tlie 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


il 


Old  Man  still  formed  a  portion  of  the  solid 
cliff.  It  is  in  the  ensuing  interval  that  this 
impressing  landmark  has  been  left  during  the 
destruction  of  the  surrounding  masses.  Long 


may  he  be  able  to  stand  his  ground!     When,  slowly   widened   above,   while  the   breakers 


his  last  hour  comes,  as  come  it  must,  may 
some  reverential  geologist,  duly  impressed 
with  a  sense  of  the  might  of  denudation  in 
the  sculpture  of  the  land,  be  there- to  pay  the 
last  honors  to  his  dust! 

In  the  scenery  of  the  British  Islands  no 
geological  formation  plays  a  more  varied  part 
than  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  and  nowhere 
•can  its  characteristic  landscapes  be  more  in- 
structively seen  than  in  these  tar  northern  dis- 
tricts of  Scotland.  In  Hoy,  for  example,  the 
upper  sandstones  rise  in  a  group  ol  smooth 
dome-shaped  hi  Is,  which,  from  all  sides, 
stand  out  in  striking  contrast  to  every  other 
form  of  ground  within  sight.  In  Caithness 
the  lower  sandstones  and  conglomerates  have 
concentrated  all  their  efforts  on  the  produc- 
tion of  the  one  solitary  mountain  of  that 
country — Morven — a  graceful  cone,  which  so 
towers  above  the  moors  on  the  one  side  and 
the  sea  on  the  other  as  to  form  one  of  the 
most  notable  landmarks  in  the  north  of  Scot- 
land. But  on  the  coast-line,  where  the  rocks 
assert  most  strongly  their  individuality  of 
character,  swept  bare  of  all  protecting  soil  by 
the  restless  and  resistless  surge,  their  minu- 
test points  of  structure  are  so  exposed  as  to 
affect  even  the  most  delicate  lineaments  of  the 
cliffs.  The  two  fundamenta  structures,  bed- 
ding and  jointing,  are  developed  with  a  tren- 
chant emphasis,  which  gives  a  dominant  char- 
acter to  the  scenery  of  the  shores  of 
Caithness  and  Orkney.  Walls  of  flagstone 
several  hundred  feet  high,  are  seen  from  base 
to  summit  to  consist  of  thin  parallel  bands  of 
horizontal  or  gently-inclined  strata.  These 
beds,  though  everywhere  singularly  durable, 
vary  slightly  in  their  powers  of  resistance  to 
the  elements.  The  less  tenacious  layers  are 
eaten  away,  while  the  harder  project  beyond 


be  driven  home.  In  another  case,  the  wedge 
has  gone  down  to  the  very  base  of  the  cliff. 
The  disjointed  buttress  is  severed  from  the 
main  mass  by  a  yawning  rent,  which  will  be 


breach  it  below,  until  the  whole  will  fall  into 
the  surf,  and  expose  the  naked  cliff  behind  to 
a  repetition  of  the  same  waste. 

If  the  joints  are  vertical  the  resulting  face 
of  the  precipice  will  be  vertical  also;  and  this 
fact,  combined  with  the  singular  durability  of 
the  flagstone,  accounts  for  the  sheer  walls 
by  which  so  much  of  Caithness  and  Orkney 
is  girdled  round.  Any  deviation  from  verti- 
cality  in  the  joints  will  of  course  produce  a 
corresponding  departure  in  the  resulting  cliff. 
Henc"e  where,  as  often  happens  in  these  re- 
gions, the  joints  are  slightly  inclined  land- 
wards, the  precipices  are  actually  made  to 
overhang.  In  such  cases  it  is  easy  to  show 
that  the  beetling  wails  are  not  really  eaten 
away  faster  by  the  waves  below  than  by  the 
subaerial  agents  above. 

Another  singular  feature  of  these  northern 
coasts  is  the  number  olgios,  or  narrow  steep- 
walled  gullies,  or  inlets,  bv  which  the  sea- 
cliffs  are  indented.  Here  again  we  trace  the 
dominant  influence  of  the  joints.  In  fact, 
the  waste  of  these  shores  may  be  compared  to 
a  gigantic  process  of  quarrying,  wherein  the 
rains,  snows  and  frosts  above,  the  springs 
and  trickling  waters  within,  and  the  breakers 
below,  are  the  unwearying  workmen. 
Whether  the  sea-wall  is  demoiished  uniform- 
ly, or  portions  of  it  are  allowed  to  remain  as 
projecting  buttresses,  or  isolated  into  massive 
quadrangular  sea-stacks,  or  cut  into  deep 
narrow  recesses,  nature  works  along  the 
joints  as  quarrymen  would  do,  and  thus  the 
massive  architectural  character  of  these  cliffs 
is  preserved.  At  the  same  time  the  slow 
progress  of  atmospheric  waste  sculptures  the 
bare  wall  of  rock  into  its  characteristically 
striped  and  fretted  surface,  and  brings  out  the 
peculiar  weather-tint  of  each  bed,  from  deep- 


them.     Hence  the  precipices  are  fretted  into  (  est  indigo  to  palest  emerald-green.    On  some 


alternate  lines  of  cornice  and  frieze,  which 
can  be  followed  by  the  eye  from  buttress  to 
buttress  along  the  front  of  thest  grim  cliffs. 

That  the  flagstone  must,  however,  be  en- 
dowed on  the  whole  with  exceptional  dura- 
bility is  shown  by  the  striking  verticality 
which  the  precipices  maintain.  Their  per- 
pendicular walls  are  defined  by  the  system  of 
joints  which  always  traverse  the  rock  vertically 


of  the  ledges  a  scanty  vegetation  finds  root, 
and  where  the  cliffs  rise  most  inaccessibly 
from  the  waves  each  cornice  along  their  front 
is  the  nestling-place  of  innu  r.erable  sea-birds, 
whose  shrill  screams  blend  with  the  sough  of 
the  wind  and  the  monotonous  cadence  of  the 
surge  into  a  wild  northern  music  that  wakens 
many  a  chord  in  the  heart  of  one  to  whom  the 
elemental  sounds  of  nature  are  ever  dear.  No 


or  at  high  angles.    Slice  after  slice  is  wedged    sooner  do  we  step  off  the  Old  Red  Sandstone 


off  by  means  of  these  joints,  and  in  this  way 
the  perpendicular  front  of  the  cliffs  is  main- 
tained. In  many  places  the  observer  may 
watch  the  process  of  sculpture  in  successive 
stages  of  progress.  He  will  notice  that,  as  a 
rule,  the  dismemberment  begins  at  the  top  of 
the  cliff,  where  the  agents  are  not  the  break- 
ers of  the  ocean,  but  rain,  frost,  and  the 
other  powers  of  the  air.  A  joint  may  be 
observed  to  gape  a  little  at  the  summit  of  the 
precipice,  where  nature's  wedge  has  begun  to 


than  these  singularly  chai  acteristic  and  per- 
sistent features  disappear.  The  contrast  pre- 
sented by  some  of  the  other  rocks  of  the 
North  must  strike  every  observer,  even  one 
to  whom  the  very  name  of  geology  is  un- 
known. The  traveler  who  journeys  west- 
ward into  Sutherlandshire  encounters  many 
varieties  of  coast  scenery,  but  he  leaves  be- 
hind him  the  peculiar  cliffs  of  the  Caithness 
flagstones.  At  one  point  he  is  confronted 
with  gleaming  precipices  ana  steep  acclivi- 


12 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


ties  of  white  glistening  quartzite,  at  another 
he  beholds  vast  sea-walls  of  a  sombre  dull 
red  sandstone,  even  more  cofossal  than  those 
of  Caithness,  but  wanting  in  those  charms  of 
light  and  shade,  wealth  of  color,  and  multi- 
plicity of  detail  in  form,  which  give  the  flag- 
stone scenery  so  defined  a  character.  Per- 
haps the  greatest  contrast  is  to  be  seen  among 
the  gneiss  precipices  of  Cape  Wrath.  That 
northwestern  headland  of  Scotland  is  com- 
posed of  the  oldest  rock  in  Britain,  and  one 
that  from  its  tough,  massive,  gnarled  aspect 
is  well  worthy  of  its  position  as  the  founda- 
tion on  which  the  geological  structure  of 
these  islands  has  been  erected.  Rising  into 
a  range  of  singularly  scarped  and  rugged 
cliffs,  it  bears  the  full  brunt  of  every  storm 
that  sweeps  across  the  open  Atlantic.  Every 
weak  part  of  its  framework  is  discovered  by  the 
powerful  battery  of  breakers,  and  is  hollowed 
into  tunnel,  cave,  or  gully,  while  the  harder 
parts  tower  up  into  fantastic  columns  or  but 
tresses.  It  possesses  no  symmetry  of  struc- 
ture like  that  of  bedding  and  jointing  among 
the  flagstones.  Huge  tortuous  veins  of  a 
coarse  kind  of  granite  run  up  the  face  of  the 
cliffr,  reminding  one  of  the  prominent  sinews 
of  some  antique  statue.  The  main  mass  of 
.the  rock  through  which  these  veins  interlace 
is  of  a  dull  dusky  green  or  livid  gray,  while 
the  veins  themselves  stand  out  in  pale  flesh 
color,  so  that  even  from  a  distance  of  several 
miles  this  singular  feature  of  tne  cliffs  may  be 
distinctly  seen. 

As  still  another  illustration  of  the  intimate 
dependence  of  our  rocky  co;st  scenery  upon 
geological  structure,  reference  may  be  made 
to  the  range  of  cliffs  on  the  southeastern 
•margin  of  Scotland  on  either  side  of  St.  Abb's 
Head.  Here  the  bedding  of  the  rocks  is  al- 
most as  plainly  marked  as  among  the  flag- 
stones of  Caithness.  But  the  strata,  instead 
of  lying  in  horizontal  or  gently-inclined  un- 
disturbed succession,  have  been  thrown  into 
huge  folds  which  sweep  from  summit  to  base 
of  precipices  sometimes  five  hundred  feet 
high.  The  lines  of  stratification  conse- 
quently curve  to  and  fro  among  the  cliffs, 
carrying  with  them  their  successive  bars  of 
massive  graywacke  or  fissile  shale.  An  in- 
tricate system  of  minor  cross-joints  causes 
these  bands  of  rocks  to  split  up  into  irregular 
blocks,  while  by  a  set  of  large  but  somewhat 
ill-defined  joints  the  cliffs  are  cleft  into  vast 
irregular  bastions  and  recesses.  On  one  of 
these  projecting  crags  the  ruined  fortalice  of 
Fast  Castle— the  prototype  of  Scott's  Castle 
of  Ravenswood:— is  perched.  Here  and  there 
at  the  base  of  the  cliffs  are  sheltered  caves, 
once  favorite  haunts  of  smugglers,  now  hardly 
ever  disturbed  by  human  voices.  Gaunt  sea- 
stacks,  once  part  of  the  main  cliff,  but  now 
isolated  amid  the  surf,  stand  up  in  front  and 
are  favori.e  resting-places  for  crowds  of  sea- 
fowl.  On  all  of  these  rock-faces,  whether 
•main  precipice  or  detached  outlier,  the  pe- 
.culiar  contour  of  the  curved  strata  may  be 


traced,  giving  the  scenery  a  character  of  its 
own,  which  only  reappears  with  the  recurrence 
of  the  same  kind  of  geological  structure. 


THE   BARON'S    STONE   OF    KIL- 
LOCHAN. 

On  a  gentle  green  declivif"  that  slopes 
down  to  the  Water  of  Girvan,  ai.ti  within  sight 
of  the  broad  Firth  of  Clyde,  which  the  Girvan 
enters  only  three  miles  farther  down  the  val- 
ley, stands  a  large  gray  block  of  granite, 
known  in  the  district  as  the  Baron's  Stone  of 
Killochan.  From  this  stone  looking  seaward, 
on  a  clear  day,  when  a  breeze  from  the  north- 
west has  freshened  the  Firth  into  deepest 
azure,  you  can  see,  far  away  beyond  the  bold 
headlands  of  Carrick,  the  long,  blue  lines  of 
the  hills  of  Antrim.  And  if  you  go  but  a  few 
yards  up  the  hill  you  may  trace  these  faint 
promontories  vanishing  into  the  west,  and 
then  the  long  low  hills  of  Cantyre  bounding 
the  western  horizon,  while  in  the  midst  of 
the  wide  stretch  of  sea  Ailsa  Craig  lifts  its 
scarred  sides  1,100  feet  above  the  surf  that 
beats  about  their  base.  The  nearer  land- 
scape is  formed  by  the  valley  of  the  Girvan, 
narrow  and  straight,  with  a  ridge  of  green 
hills  about  1,000  feet  high  on  the  south  side, 
a  range  of  lower  wooded  eminences  on  the 
north,  and  the  river  winding  in  endless  curves 
along  the  bottom.  Looking  up  this  valley, 
the  eye  wanders  with  delight  over  a  mingled 
grouping  of  woodland  and  meadow,  revealing 
here  and  there  a  reach  of  the  blue  stream  and 
a  strip  of  soft  bright  pasture.  The  woods 
climb  up  boldly  along  the  hillsides,  overshad- 
owing every  little  dingle  and  watercourse, 
and  so  sweeping  onward  up  the  valley,  in 
every  tint  of  green,  and  every  variety  of  mass 
and  outline,  until  a  bend  of  the  hills  closes  in 
the  view.  Even  as  a  piece  of  scenery,  this 
vale  of  the  Girvan,  though  less  known  than 
many  others  in  the  lowlands  of  Scotland,  has 
a  charm  which  these  often  want.  There  is 
one  respect,  at  least,  wherein  it  has  a  peculiar 
interest.  I  know  of  few  Scottish  landscapes 
so  circumscribed  in  extent,  yet  into  which  are 
crowded  so  many  human  associations  of  by- 
gone limes.  On  the  hill-tops  that  look  down 
upon  us  are  the  mouldering  ramparts  of  the 
earthen  forts  of  the  early  races.  From  the 
lower  grounds  the  plow  and  harrow  have  long 
effaced  suca  antique  memorials  ;  but  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  primitive  people  survive  in  the 
very  names  of  the  hamlets  and  meadows. 
From  these  names  we  learn  of  Culdee  saints 
to  whom  shrines  were  erected  all  down  the 
course  of  the  Girvan.  And  we  see  how  the 
natives  were  Celtic,  speaking  the  same  lan- 
guage that  still  survives  in  the  Highlands, 
and  displaying  the  same  nice  discrimination 
and  poetic  turn  of  thought  in  the  choice  of 
names  for  their  r  vers,  and  crags,  and  hills. 
The  castles  of  feudal  times  have  survived 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


better  in  this  district  of  Ayrshire  than  in 
most  other  parts  of  Scotland.  There  are  the 
remains  of  at  least  a  dozen  of  them  in  the 
lower  sixteen  miles  of  the  Girvan  valley. 
Most  of  these,  indeed,  are  ruinous  ;  but  some 
still  form  part  of  more  modern  mansions,  and 
at  least  one — the  old  house  of  Killochan — re- 
mains nearly  as  it  was  some  three  hundred 
years  ago.  Nor  are  these  merely  interesting 
from  their  antiquity.  Each  is  linked  more  or 
less  closely  with  the  history  of  the  district, 
and  sometimes  not  of  the  district  only,  but 
of  the  kingdom  at  large.  For  the  barons  of 
Carrick  were  a  warlike  race,  ever  at  feud 
either  with  each  other  or  with  their  neigh- 
bors in  the  adjoining  sheriffdoms,  and  they 
had  power  enough  to  make  themselves  of 
consequence  for  good  or  ill  to  the  govern- 
ment of  the  realm.  But  of  the  barons  more 
anon. 

Looking  at  the  great  size  and  weight  of 
the  Stone  of  Killochan,  one  is  tempted  at  the 
very  first  to  ask  how  so  large  a  blojk  came  to 
be  where  it  now  lies.  It  measures  roughly 
about  480  cubic  feet,  and  must  thus  weigh 
somewhere  about  thirty-seven  tons.  There 
are  no  overhanging  crags  from  which  it  could 
have  rolled.  It  stands  high  above  the  river, 
and  fully  one  hundred  feet  above  the  sea,  so 
that  we  can  scarcely  imagine  it  to  have  been 
washed  down  by  floods,  even  if  its  great  size 
did  not  forbid  such  a  supposition.  But  our 
surprise  increases  wh«.n  we  find  that  this 
great  mass  of  rock  consists  entirely  of  a  close- 
grained  granite.  There  is  in  the  neighbor- 
hood no  granite  hill  f:om  which  it  could  have 
been  detached.  Silurian  grits,  slates  and 
limestones,  Old  red  sandstones  and  conglom- 
erates, Carboniferous  shales,  freestones  and 
coals,  form  all  the  surrounding  country  ;  but 
there  is  no  granite.  Whence,  then,  came  the 
Baron's  Stone?  Perhaps  a  casual  visitor 
might  be  bold  enough  to  imagine  that  it  was 
brought  up  from  the  coast  by  some  of  the 
old  barons,  having  been  shipped  across  from 
Arran.  The  size  of  the  boulder,  however,  is 
enough  of  itself  to  show  the  absurdity  of  such 
a  notion.  Let  the  visitor  step  down  to  the 
margin  of  the  river  and  look  at  the  blocks  of 
granite — less,  indeed,  in  size,  but  similar  in 
composition  and  form — which  are  lying  by 
scores  along  the  watercourse.  Let  him  turn 
eastward  into  the  picturesque  little  dell,  by  the 
side  of  which  lies  th,  carriage-way  to  the 
castle.  In  the  bed  of  the  rivulet  he  will  see 
another  set  of  large  granite  boulders,  one  of 
them  containing  about  200  cubic  feet  of  stone. 
Throughout  the  whole  valley,  in  short,  he 
can  hardly  turn  anywhere  without  encounter- 
ing similar  boulders.  They  have  been  mostly 
cleared  off  the  cultivated  places,  and  may  be 
seen  gathered  into  groups  at  the  corners  of 
the  fields.  They  crowd  the  bottom  of  all 
the  streamlets.  The  field  fences  are  built  of 
them  ;  road  walls,  doorposts,  lintels,  even 
entire  cottages,  have  been  made  out  of  these 
Widely-distributed  stones.  The  old  barons 


would  have  had  but  a  sorry  time  of  it  had 
their  days  been  spent  in  bringing  granite 
boulders  from  a  distance  to  mar  their  own 
fields  and  cumber  their  moors  and  hillsides, 
already  barren  enough  by  nature.  They  could 
then  have  enjoyed  but  little  leisure  for  the 
pastime  of  killing  and  maiming  each  other. 
And  yet  all  the  barons  of  Carrick,  with  all 
their  vassals  and  retainers  to  boot,  working 
hard  together  for  five  hundred  years,  could 
not  have  done  a  thousandth  part  of  the  wo:k. 
So  conspicuous  a  feature  in  the  scenery  of 
the  country  could  not  well  escape  notice,  es- 
pecially in  early  times,  when  a  supernatural 
origin  was  easily  found  for  what  could  not 
otherwise  be  readily  explained.  I  have  not 
yet  been  able  to  recover  any  of  these  tradi- 
tional theories  about  the  boulders  in  this  part 
of  Scotland.  They  still  exist,  however,  in 
other  districts  ;  and,  as  a  good  sample  of  the 
class,  especially  in  the  way  of  showing  the 
dry  humor  which  enters  so  largely  into  the 
elfin  legend  north  of  the  Tweed,  I  may  quote 
one  which  came  under  my  own  notice  some 
time  ago  in  Clydesdale.  Not  many  miles 
I  above  the  Falls  of  Clyde  the  river  makes 
some  serpentine  curves  through  a  wide  allu- 
vial plain.  One  of  these  bends  approaches 
the  village  of  Carnwath,  and  the  stream  has 
there  cut  away  part  of  a  bank  of  soft  clay 
and  sand,  on  which  are  scattered  a  number 
of  blocks  of  greenstone.  An  intelligent  na- 
tive of  Carnwath,  to  \vnom  I  applied  for 
information  about  the  former  number  of 
boulders,  told  me  that  in  his  boyhood  the 
ground  between  the  river  and  the  Yelping 
Craig,  about  two  miles  off,  was  literally 
strewed  over  with  blocks  of  all  sizes,  up  to 
masses  six  feet  or  more  in  height.  So  abund* 
ant  were  they  to  the  southwest  of  Carnwath, 
that  one  tract  was  known  as  the  ' '  Hell 
Stanes  Gate,"  i.e.,  road,  and  another  as  the 
"  Hell  Stanes  Loan."  The  stones  have  now 
well-nigh  disappeared  under  the  sway  of  the 
farmers,  but  the  old  legend  of  their  origin 
still  remains.  My  informant,  after  pointing 
out  the  graves  of  some  of  the  larger  boulders 
and  the  broken  remains  of  others,  went  on  to 
tell  how,  in  old  times,  Michael  Scott  and  the 
devil  had  entered  into  a  compact  with  a  band 
of  witches  to  dam  back  the  Clyde.  It  was 
one  ot  the  conditions  of  the  agreement  that 
the  na.ne  of  the  Supreme  Being  shou  d  never 
on  any  account  be  mentioned.  All  went  well 
for  awhile  ;  some  of  the  more  stalwart  spirits 
having  brought  their  burden  of  boulders  to 
within  a  few  yards  from  the  edge  of  the  river, 
when  one  of  the  younger  members  of  the 
company,  staggering  under  the  weight  of  a 
huge  block  of  greenstone,  exclaimed,  "O 
Lord,  but  I'm  tired."  Instantly  every  boul- 
der tumbled  to  the  ground,  nor  could  either 
witch,  warlock,  or  devil  move  a  single  stone 
one  step  thereafter.  And  there  the  blocks 
lay  for  many  a  long  century,  until  the  indus- 
trious farmers  quarried  and  blasted  and 
buried  them. 


14 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  elfins  of 
old  were  not  less  busy  in  Carrick,  though  the 
records  of  their  doings  have  faded  from  tra- 
dition. It  is  still  told,  however,  that  one 
witch,  of  more  than  ordinary  audacity  and 
strength,  lifted  a  great  hill  from  the  Ayrshire 
uplands,  and,  putting  it  in  her  apron,  made 
off  through  the  air  for  Ireland.  But,  as  bad 
luck  would  have  it,  the  apron  strings  broke 
on  the  passage,  and  the  hill  fell  with  a  fear- 
ful plunge  into  the  Firth,  where  it  still 
remains,  under  the  name  of  Ailsa  Craig.  The 
only  original  account  of  the  boulders  of  the 
Girvan  valley  which  has  come  under  my  no- 
tice was  that  of  a  mason,  who,  when  asked 
his  idea  of  the  endless  blocks  of  gr  nite  that 
dot  the  fields  and  hillsides  like  flecks  of 
sheep,  gravely  remarked  that  "when  the 
Almichtie  flang  the  warld  out,  He  maun  ha'e 
putten  thae  stanes  upon  her  to  keep  her 
steady." 

Supernatural  agency  failing  us,  we  come 
back  again  to  the  question,  Whence  came 
the  Baron's  Stone  of  Killochan  and  all  its 
kindred  boulders  ?  There  is,  as  every  tourist 
knows,  a  great  mass  of  granite  in  Arran.  It 
rises  into  the  noble  cone  of  Goatfell,  and 
forms  the  chains  of  jagged  peaks  that  over- 
shadow the  defiles  of  Glen  Rosa  and  Glen 
Sannox.  But  this  granite  is  not  the  same  as 
that  of  the  Carrick  boulders.  It  differs  in 
texture,  partly  also  in  composition,  and  in 
certain  rdineralogical  peculiarities  which  need 
not  be  specified  here.  There  can,  indeed,  be 
no  doub.  whatever  that  the  boulders  did  not 
come  from  Arran.  Where,  then,  is  their 
source  to  be  sought?  Let  us  in  imagination 
make  our  way  up  the  valley  of  the  Girvan, 
and  note  as  we  go  such  changes  of  scenery 
and  rock  as  may  chance  to  throw  light  on  the 
matter.  The  lower  or  seaward  portion  of 
the  river's  course  runs  along  the  northern 
base  of  a  tolerably  steep  line  of  hills,  rising, 
as  I  have  said,  to  heights  of  over  a  thousand 
feet,  and  sweeping  away  southward  and  east- 
ward into  the  wild  mountainous  uplands  of 
Carrick  and  Galloway.  After  skirting  these 
hills  for  about  sixteen  miles,  among  woodlands 
and  pleasure-grounds,  and  past  the  remains 
of  ancient  strongholds,  toe  course  of  the 
stream  bends  round  at  nearly  a  right  angle 
toward  the  south,  and  enters  the  uplands 
through  a  narrow  and  deep  defile.  Looking 
up  this  straitened  valley,  the  cultivated  coun- 
try lies  all  behind  us,  while  in  front  are  the 
lonely  hills.  The  change  of  scenery  takes 
place  so  suddenly  that  no  sooner  do  we  plunge 
into  the  chain  of  hills  than  the  rich  woods 
and  cornfields  disappear;  steep,  grassy  and 
rocky  declivities  descend  abruptly  upon  the 
narrowed  strip  of  alluvial  soil  that  borders 
the  river;  trees  occur  only  at  intervals,  and 
chiefly  down  the  watercourses;  the  herbage 
p-ows  more  and  more  heathy,  and  traces  of 
cultivation  more  and  more  scanty,  until,  as 
•we  wind  up  the  valley,  we  at  last  take  leave 
of  all  signs  of  human  habita  ion,  and  enter 


upon  a  region  of  wide,  desolate,  treeless 
moorland,  and  gray  craggy  mountain.  The 
lower  parts  of  the  course  of  the  Girvan  lie 
chiefly  upon  the  various  members  of  the 
Carboniferous  series  of  rocks.  But  the  upper 
portion,  which  winds  through  the  highgroundsv 
has  been  hollowed  out  of  the  northern  margin 
of  the  wide  band  of  Silurian  rocks  stretching; 
entirely  across  the  south  of  Scotland  from  the 
Irish  Sea  to  the  German  Ocean.  These  Si- 
lurian strata,  bent  and  broken  like  crumpled- 
parchments,  presenting  at  the  surface  everjr 
variety  of  crag  and  knoll,  dingle  and  dell, 
rounded  hill,  steep  precipice,  and  rough, 
rilggcd  mountain,  form  the  whol  •  of  the 
wide  uplands  of  Carrick  and  Galloway,  where 
they  mount  to  a  height  of  more  than  2,700- 
feet  above  the  sea.  It  is  on  the  northern 
flank  of  the  highest  chain  «f  the  great  cen- 
tral group  of  hills  that  the  Girvan  has  its. 
source.  Following  its  course  upward  from 
the  lowland  country,  we  find  the  same  abund- 
ance of  boulders  in  the  narrowed  valley  as  in. 
the  more  open  parts  toward  the  sea.  Still 
we  fail  to  trace  any  granite  forming  a  solid 
part  of  a  hill.  Conglomerate,  shale,  grit,  por- 
phyry, and  other  kinds  of  rock,  crop  out 
along  the  sides  of  the  glens,  but  without 
any  symptoms  of  granite.  And  yet  the  gran- 
ite boulders,  gray  and  lichened,  are  strewed. 
over  these  hillsides,  just  as  they  were  seen  far 
down  over  the  Carboniferous  strata  of  the  low 
grounds.  At  a  height  of  between  700  and- 
800  feet  above  the  sea  there  are  some  remark- 
able mounds  on  our  way,  formed  of  loose 
earth  and  clay,  with  abundance  of  boulders. 
of  various  Silurian  rocks,  and  here  and  there 
with  large  blocks  of  granite  strewed  over  their 
surface.  Similar  mounds  occur  higher  up, 
and  all  the  interval  is  studded  as  usual  with 
granite  boulders.  Still  we  can  see  no  granite- 
in  place.  Passing  one  or  two  small  lakes  or 
lochans,  which  receive  and  discharge  the 
waters  of  the  Girvan  in  an  undulating  mossy 
tract  of  ground,  we  begin  to  be  utterly  amazed: 
at  the  prodigious  quantity  as  well  as  the  great 
size  of  the  granite  blocks.  Gray  and  lichen- 
crusted,  or  crumbling  into  sand,  they  are 
scattered  over  the  valley  by  thousands.  They 
lie  on  all  manner  of  declivities,  sometimes  on 
mounds  of  rubbish,  sometimes  on  prominent 
ridges  of  rocks,  and  sometimes  half-buried  in 
peat-bogs,  like  groups  of  "laired"  cattle. 
Moreover,  as  we  rise  with  this  broken  ground,, 
our  eyes  are  struck  with  the  strange  hum- 
mocky  shapes  into  which  the  hillsides  have 
been  worn.  The  solid  rock  comes  almost 
everywhere  to  the  daylight  in  the  form  of 
rounded  knolls  and  hollows,  which,  especially 
where  they  have  been  preserved  from  the- 
wear  and  tear  of  the  weather  by  a  coating  of 
turf  or  soil,  have  a  singularly  smooth  and 
polished  appearance,  which  is  rendered  all 
the  more  marked,  seeing  that  the  edges  of 
the  vertical  strata  have  been  ground  down, 
into  one  common  undulating  surface.  Oft 
such  rounded  and  polished  bosses  of  rock  the: 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


ne*er-failing  granite  boulders  may  be  seen  at 
every  turn.  At  length  the  valley  narrows  in 
a  scene  of  strange  lonely  giandeur.  The 
Drawling  brook — it  no  longer  merits  the  title 
of  river — throws  its  amber  waters  into  foam 
over  endless  boulders  that  choke  up  its  chan- 
nel. And  then,  where  the  torrent  breaks 
impatiently  from  the  lower  end  of  another 
lochan,  among  hardened  beds  of  Silurian  grit 
and  shale,  we  enter  upon  a  great  mass  of 
granite,  which  forms  the  remaining  mile  of 
the  course  of  the  Girvan,  and  rises  high  on 
either  hand  into  gray  rugged  hills.  Crags  of 
granite  of  every  size  and  form  stand  up 
bleached  and  barren  from  the  brown  heath. 
Blocks  ot  granite  in  endless  varieties  of  bulk 
and  shape  lie  strewed  about,  beneath  and 
around  the  crags  from  which  they  have  been 
detached.  The  river  issues  from  a  little  tarn, 
called  Loch  Girvan  Eye,  filling  a  rock-basin 
in  the  granite,  1,600  feet  above  the  sea. 
Round  this  sheet  of  water  the  rugged  ground 
is  cumbered  with  blocks  that  seem  just  waiting 
their  turn  to  be  borne  away  down  to  the  lower 
grounds.  To  the  south,  a  high  bleak  moun- 
tain ridge  ascends  to  an  elevation  of  2,700  feet 
above  the  sea,  and  1,100  over  the  parent  tarn 
of  the  Girvan.  Here,  then,  at  last  is  the 
source  of  the  granite  boulders  of  the  valley. 
It  was  from  these  lonely  hillsides  that  the 
Baron's  Stone  of  Killochan  was  carried. 

From  these  high  grounds  millions  of 
boulders  of  all  sizes,  up  to  masses  weighing 
at  least  thirty  or  forty  tons,  have  been  borne 
seaward  and  strewed  over  the  lower  hills  and 
valleys  of  Carrick.  What  agency  could  trans- 
port them  ?  It  is  plain  that  no  flood  of  fresh 
water  could  have  scattered  them,  for  they  are 
oft.n  perched  on  the  hill-tops  800  or  900  feet 
above  the  valleys  in  which  the  streams  are 
running.  Nor  is  it  conceivable  that  at  a 
former  time,  when  the  level  of  the  land  was 
much  lower  than  it  is  now,  any  great  ocean- 
wave  could  have  taken  its  rise  within  a  limited 
area  of  what  is  now  the  highest  ground  in  the 
south  of  Scotland,  and  carried  with  it  in  one 
vast  resistless  debacle  such  enormous  quanti- 
ties of  boulders,  so  as  not  merely  to  bring 
them  down  into  deep  confined  valleys,  but 
actually  to  sweep  them  up  again'to  the  sum- 
mits of  the  seaward  hills. 

Such  work  as  this  could  have  been  done 
by  only  one  agency  in  nature — that  of  ice. 

When  we  once  embrace  the  idea  that  the 
transport  of  these  endless  heaps  ot  boulders 
has  been  effected  by  ice,  the  difficulties  which 
previously  seemed  insuperable  one  by  one 
disappear.  And  the  more  we  examine  into 
the  facts  of  the  case,  the  more  firm  becomes 
our  conviction  that  this,  after  all,  is  the  true 
theory.  Looking  at  the  Carrick  hills  with 
an  eye  that  has  been  trained  in  the  study 
of  what  are  known  as  glacial  phenomena, 
the  geologist  sees  at  every  turn  traces  of  a  time 
when  one  wide  mantle  of  ice  and  snow  was 
thrown  far  and  wide  over  the  hills  and  valleys. 
The  peculiarly-shaped  hummocks  and  bosses 


of  rock,  so  shorn  and  smoothed,  recall  at 
once  the  roches  moutonn/es,  or  ice-worn  rocks, 
of  Alpine  valleys.  The  huge  blocks  of 
granite  strewed  along  the  hillsides  remind 
one  of  the  blocs  perches  that  abound  on  the 
flanks  of  the  Swiss  mountains,  where  they 
have  been  left  by  the  retreating  glaciers.  The 
mounds  of  earth  and  rubbish,  noted  in  the 
ascent  of  the  course  of  the  Girvan,  are  quite 
comparable  with  the  moraines  or  rubbish- 
heaps  that  are  shed  f-om  the' ends  of  glaciers 
at  the  present  day.  Indeed,  the  whole  con- 
tour of  the  ground,  especially  in  the  upper 
parts  of  the  Girvan  valley,  suggests  at  a 
glance  the  former  existence  there  of  a  mas- 
sive sheet  of  ice  which,  descending  cease- 
lessly from  the  higher  tracts  toward  the  sea, 
ground  down  and  smoothed  the  surface  of 
the  rocks  over  which  it  moved.  I  have  no- 
ticed in  these  uplands  many  examples  of  what 
are  known  as  ' '  dressed  surfaces "  on  the 
rocks,  and  they  are  well  seen  in  many  places 
near  the  sea.  These  "  dressings  "  are  long 
ruts,  scratches,  and  fine  striae,  running  in  a 
determinate  line  across  the  smoothed  sur- 
faces of  the  rocks.  They  look  like  what 
might  be  artificially  produced  by  pushing^ 
sand,  gravel,  and  stones,  under  enormous 
pressure,  along  a  polished  plane  of  rock. 
And  there  cannot  be  any  doubt  that  it  was 
really  by  the  attrition  of  such  materials  that 
the  scratches  were  made,  and  that  the  pres- 
sure and  onward  movement  were  given  by 
the  vast  overlying  bed  of  ice.  Similar  dress 
ings  are  familiar  features  of  the  rocks  in 
Al.-ine  valleys,  where  the  trend  of  the  striae- 
runs  in  the  same  line  as  the  valley— that  is,  of 
course,  in  the  direction  in  which  the  glacier 
has  moved. 

The  water  which   percolates  through  the 
I  numerous  joints  and  fissures  of  a  rocky  cliff 
1  and   freezes  there   in  winter,  widens   by  its 
expansion   the  crevices   it   occupies.      This 
j  operation  being  often  repeated,  there  comes 
'  at  last  a  time  when  the  wedges  of  ice  have 
j  so  effectually  sundered  a  mass  from  its  parent 
I  cliff  that  it  falls  headlong  into  the  valley. 
j  Should  a  glacier  occupy  the  bottom  of  the 
valley  below,  the  loosened  rocks  gather  in 
heaps  on  the  surface  of  the  ice.     Once  there, 
they  are  slowly  and  steadily  carried  down  t-ie 
valley   until — unless  some  rent  in   the   ice 
should  swallow  them  up  by  the  way  —  they 
are  thrown  down  at  the  end  of  the  glacier, 
perhaps  many  leagues  from  the  cliffs  whence 
they  originally  came.      In  high  northern  lati- 
|  tudes  the  glaciers,  instead  of  melting  far  in 
|  the  interior  of  the  country,  as  those  of  the 
Alps  do,  actually  push  their  way  out  to  sea, 
and   break   off  in  vast   masses,  which   float 
away  seaward  as  icebergs.     It  is  clear  that, 
if  the  surface  of  the  glacier  has  been  cum- 
bered with  boulders  and  rocky  rubbish  in  the- 
inland  glens,  it  will  carry  this  burden  with  it 
as  it  moves  down  to  the  sea-level ;  and  the 
masses  of  ice  which  break  off  from  the  end 
of  the  glacier  will,  in  like  manner,  bear  their 


16 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


•cargoes  of  earth  and  stones  as  they  journey 
over  the  ocean.  And,  as  these  ice-islands 
melt  away,  their  rocky  cargoes  must  be  scat- 
tered far  and  wide  over  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 
By  this  system  of  transport  the  ruins  of  many 
an  Arctic  valley  are  strewn  over  the  fjords 
and  sounds  of  Greenland. 

At  the  time  when  the  granite  boulders  of 
Carrick  were  transported  from  their  original 
home  among  the  hills,  the  land  was  so  deeply 
buried  under  snow  and  ice  that  a  massive 
ice-sheet  crept  down  to  the  sea-level  from  the 
mountains  of  Carrick  and  Galloway,  filling 
up  the  valleys  and  overriding  the  lower  hills, 
even  up  to  a  height  of  more  than  1,000  feet 
above  the  present  sea-level.  The  more  pre- 
cipitous eminences  of  the  uplands  rose  above 
the  surface  of  the  ice  on  which  they  shed 
their  frost-broken  boulders  of  granite.  Not 
improbably  at  tne  time  of  extremest  cold  the 
ice-sheet  descended  to  the  sea,  and  may  have 
advanced  for  some  way  into  its  waters,  where 
its  margin  bro^e  up  into  fleets  of  bergs  that 
sailed  away  seaward,  dropping  over  the  sub- 
merged land  their  freight  of  granite  boulders. 
As  happens  within  the  Arctic  circle  at  the 
present  day,  the  cold  may  have  been  so  in- 
tense as  to  freeze  the  waters  of  the  ocean 
and  invest  the  coast-line  of  that  ancient 
Scotland  with  a  solid  encrusting  zone  of  ice. 
Such  an  ice-cake  would  envelop  many  a 
stone  lying  along  the  beach,  and,  when  bro- 
ken up  by  the  storms  of  summer,  would  carry 
its  imprisoned  boulders  away  to  ssa,  and 
finally  drop  them  on  the  bottom.  It  is  far 
from  improbable  that  this  process  was  also  in 
play  during  the  long  migration  of  the  Carrick 
boulders.  There  still  exist,  in  abundance, 
along  some  parts  of  the  shores  of  the  Clyde 
estuary,  the  remains  of  the  shells  which  ten- 
anted the  sea  during  this  cold  era  in  our 
country's  past  history.  Many  of  these  shells 
are  still  natives  of  the  neighboring  firth; 
some,  however,  and  these  often  the  most 
abundant,  have  long  since  died  out  in  the 
British  seas,  though  they  still  flourish  in  the 
waters  of  the  Arctic  Ocean.  They  are  nat- 
urally adapted  to  a  cold  climate;  and  their 
abundance  in  the  old  sea-bottoms  of  the  gla- 
cial period  that  occur  on  the  west  coast, 
affords  a  curious  corroboration  of  the  testi- 
mony of  the  boulders  that  the  climate  of  the 
British  Islands  was  once  as  severe  as  that  of 
modern  Greenland. 

So  here  at  last  is  the  history  of  the  origin 
of  the  Baron's  Stone  of  Killochan.  It  once 
formed  part  of  a  cliff,  some  2,000  feet  over 
its  present  site,  far  away  up  among  the  lone- 
ly mountains  that  look  down  upon  Loch 
Doon.  And,  when  it  occupied  its  place  in 
that  cliff,  the  mountains  around  were  cased 
deep  in  snow,  and  the  glens  were  clogged 
wilh  thick  masses  of  ice  which,  with  block- 
covered  surface,  moved  steadily  seaward. 
The  granite  cliff,  like  its  representatives  at 
the  present  day,  traversed  in  all  directions 
with  joints  and  fissures,  was  liable  to  be 


split  up  into  large  angular  blocks.  One  of 
these  masses,  weighing  at  least  thirty-seven 
tons,  was  loosened  one  day  from  its  resting- 
place  and  rolled  down  among  the  ruia  of 
boulders  that  lay  heaped  upon  the  glacier  be- 
low.  With  the  ice  in  its  steady  seaward 
progress,  this  granite  boulder  moved  mil* 
after  mile  over  ice-buried  hill  and  glen;  re< 
ceiving,  doubtless,  many  a  dint  from  brother 
blocks  hurried  from  their  long  silence  in  the 
cliffs  to  join  the  rattle  of  the  ice-borne  heap) 
beneath.  Whether  the  transport  was  entire 
ly  done  by  the  sheet  of  moving  land-ice,  oj 
whether  the  last  part  of  the  journey  was  per, 
formed  upon  a  detached  berg  floating  ofl 
into  the  sea,  may  be  matter  of  debate.  But 
this  at  least  is  certain,  that,  after  traveling 
some  eighteen  miles  from  its  source,  the 
boulder  was  finally  stranded  on  or  near  the 
spot  where  it  still  remains.  Many  a  shifting 
scene  has  come  over  the  face  of  the  country 
since  then.  The  ice-fields  have  disappeared, 
and  with  them  the  hairy  elephants  and  woolly 
rhinoceroses,  reindeer  and  elks,  which  then 
roamed  over  the  land ;  forests  have  sprung  up 
and  departed;  the  river  has  worn  its  way 
through  cliffs  of  solid  stone,  and  has  rolled 
out  many  a  fair  meadow;  but  there  still 
stands  the  granite  boulder — a  silent  memorial 
of  the  long-vanished  ice  age. 

But  the  Baron's  Stone  has  another  history, 
and  from  this  it  takes  its  name.  The  granite 
boulders  of  Carrick  have  served  as  an  inex  - 
haustible  quarry  from  the  earliest  times. 
They  may  be  seen  forming  a  part  of  the  ram- 
parts of  the  hill  forts  of  the  early  British 
tribes.  Set  upright,  they  sometimes  have 
served  as  rough  unchiseled  monumental 
stones.  A  rude  carving  may,  indeed,  be 
traced  on  some  of  these  monoliths.  Thus, 
on  the  eastern  flanks  of  the  Brown  Carrick 
Hill,  a  few  miles  south  of  the  town  of  Ayr, 
lies  an  oblong  block  of  gray  granite  weighing 
about  two  tons.  It  has  evidently  at  one 
time  been  upright,  and  on  the  original  face, 
which  forms  now  the  upper  surface  of  the 
stone,  a  rude  cross  has  been  carved,  having 
the  same  outline  as  the  common  monumental 
crosses  of  the  West  Highlands.  That  the 
stone  served  as  a  memorial  of  the  dead  can 
hardly  be  doubted.  So  simple  an  explanation, 
however,  suited  not  the  marvel-loving  fancy 
of  the  old  Carrick  men.  Abercrummie,  the 
Episcopal  curate  of  Maybo'.e,  who  was  "out 
ed"  on  the  re-establishment  of  Presbyterian- 
sm,  wrote  a  "Description  of  Carrick"  about 
the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  ;  and,  in 
alluding  to  this  sculptured  stone,  he  calls  it 
'  'a  big  whimstone,  upon  which  there  is  the 
dull  figure  of  a  Crosse  ;  which  is  alleged  to 
have  been  done  by  some  venerable  church- 
man, who  did  mediat  a  pea  e  twixt  the  King 
of  the  Picts  and  Scots  ;  and  to  give  the  more 
authority  to  his  proposall  did  in  their  sight, 
by  laying  a  crosse  upon  the  stone,  imprint 
that  figure  thereon."  Another  legend  repre- 
sent-- the  cross  as  the  impression  of  Sir  Will. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


17 


Jam  Wallace's  sword,  which,  having  been  j  short  dumpy  spire,  like  the  cap  of  a  pepper- 
laid  on  the  stone  at  nightfall,  left  its  mold  I  box.  Over  the  doorway  is  another  indication 
in  the  hard  granite  ere  morning.  A  third  of  the  advancing  civilization  of  the  time  ;  it 
version  of  the  story  relates  how  Wallace  is  an  inscription  which  runs  thus  :  "This 
fought  single-handed  against  a  host  of  Eng-  work  was  begun  the  I  of  Marcbe  1586  Be 
lishmen,  and  how  his  sword,  happening  to  j  Johne  Cathcart  of  Carlton  and  He'ene  Wai- 
strike  against  the  stone,  cut  its  likeness  i  lace  his  ! 


Spous.  The  name  of  the  Lord  is  ane 
strang  tour  and  the  rychteous  in  their  trou- 
blis  rinnis  into  and  findeth  refuge.  Prov  18 
vers.  lo."  It  is  unnecessary  to  remark  that 
this  is  from  an  older  translation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures than  our  authorized  Version.  The 
house — as  appears  from  a  curious  set  of  carv- 
ings inside,  representing  the  founder  with 
his  wife,  and  apparently  his  son  and  daugh- 
ter— took  several  years  to  build.  It  stands  at 
the  edge  of  a  flat  strip  of  alluvial  meadow 
bordering  the  river,  and  is  surrounded  with 
old  trees  and  hedgerows,  and  a  terraced 
garden  of  the  antique  type.  A  year  or  two 
after  the  completion  of  his  architectural  and 
horticultural  labors  at  Killochan,  the  Laird 
was  summoned  to  attend  "the  Leutennentis 
Raid  of  Dumfreis."  Like  a  great  many 
other  lairds,  he  thought  proper  to  stay  away, 
and  was  "delatit"  in  consequence.  Next 
year — namely,  at  the  close  of  1601 — he  was 
engaged,  and  his  son  with  him,  in  one  of  the 
most  memorable  feuds  in  Ayrshire.  The 
Laird  of  Bargany  and  the  Eart  of  Cassilis, 
both  Kennedies,  and  both  comparatively 
young  men,  had  long  been  at  feud.  Each 
jealous  of  the  other's  power,  they  were  ready 
to  fly  to  arms  to  avenge  a  real  or  fancied  in- 
sult, and  it  cost  King  James  no  little  anxiety 
to  keep  the  peace  between  them.  We  find  at 

eluding  the  Laird  himse'f,  died  on  the  field  j  one  time  the  young  Laird  of  Killochan  sent 
of  Flodden.  Alan,  third  Lord  Cathcart, fell  at  by  Bargany,  his  neighbor,  to  demand  from 
Pinkie.  The  son  of  the  Flodden  hero  con-  the  Earl  of  Cassilis  the  origin  of  a  calum- 
trived  to  rouse  the  enmity  of  a  branch  of  the  |  nious  statement  made  by  him.  On  another 
Kennedies  who  had  lands  among  the  hills  to  occasion,  when  there  was  like  to  be  blood 
the  south,  and  suffered  the  loss  of  his  left  j  spilt  between  the  rivals  and  their  followers 
hand,  besides  sundry  cuttings  and  wound-  j  about  the  rents  of  certain  fields  near  the  sea, 
ings  about  the  face.  His  grandson  makes  a  the  old  Laird  Cathcart  became  surety  for  the 
more  notable  figure  in  the  history  Choos-  j  peaceable  settlement  of  the  dispute.  But 
ing  a  pretty  reach  of  the  Girvan,  a  few  hun-  |  these  repeated  quarrels,  though  quieted  for  a 
dred  yards  east  from  the  Baron's  stone,  where  j  time,  left  their  dark  sediment  of  malice  and 
possibly  an  older  castle  stood,  he  built  a  revenge  in  the  breasts  of  both  the  chieftains. 
quaint  mansion  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  "The  King  gart  thame  schaik  handis,"  says 
which  still  stands,  and  is  known  as  the  old  the  old  chronicler  of  these  feuds,  "but  not 
House  or  Castle  of  Killochan.  It  is  a  char-  with  their  hairttis."  At  last,  at  the  end  of 
acteristic  specimen  of  the  Scottish  architect-  the  year  1601,  the  Earl  hearing  that  Bargany, 
ure  of  the  period — a  sort  of  passage  from  the  j  with  a  small  band  of  friends  and  retainers, 
old  feudal  keep  or  tower  to  the  more  recent  I  was  on  his  way  south  from  Ayr,  assembled  a 
mansion-house.  The  need  of  a  strongly-  large  armed  force  to  waylay  him.  The  two 
fortified  retreat,  with  loopholes  and  port-  I  parties  met  near  Maybole  ;  Bargany,  seeing 
cullis,  had  ceased  to  exist  ;  but  the  builders  !  the  enormous  disparity  of  numbers,  tried  to 
still  made  their  walls  four  or  five  feet  thick,  j  avoid  a  combat,  and  rode  on  with  one  part  of 
and,  though  they  were  no  longer  afraid  to  j  his  horsemen,  while  the  young  Cathcart  fol- 
open  out  windows,  they  kept  such  openings  j  lowed  at  the  head  of  the  rest.  But  the  Earl 


thereon  by  the  blow! 

The  barons  of  Carrick  found  the  boulders 
too  hard  to  be  dressed  for  the  walls  of  their 
castles  ;  but  they  used  them  with  great  effect 
to  form  the  foundations,  as  in  the  stately 
castle  of  Dalquharran,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Girvan.  In  recent  times,  as  already  said, 
they  have  been  built  into  stone  fences,  cut 
into  gateposts,  and  squared  into  blocks,  of 
which  tombstones  and  obelisks  have  been 
made. 

The  Baron's  Stone  of  Killochan,  however, 
does  not  seem  ever  to  have  had  a  tool  upon 
it,  until,  some  years  ago,  the  proprietor  had 
its  name  carved  on  its  side  to  mark  it  as  sa- 
cred from  the  hands  of  the  relentless  farmer 
Tradition  tells  that  it  served  as  the  judgment 
seat  of  the  old  barons  of  Killochan,  where 
they  mustered  their  men,  planned  their  raids, 
shared  the  booty,  and  hanged  or  cut  off  the 
heads  of  refractory  prisoners.  The  family 
name  is  Cathcart,  and  the  property  still  re- 
mains in  their  hands.  They  are  said  to  trace 
their  genealogy  back  to  the  days  of  the  Bruce, 
a  charter  from  whom  still  exists  among  the 
family  archives.  Though  overshadowed  by 
the  power  and  influence  of  the  Kennedies, 
the  Cathcarts  played  their  parts  in  the  troub- 
lous history  of  Carrick.  Three  brothers,  in- 


as  small  as  might  be.  They  had  been  build- 
ing flanking-towers  so  long,  too,  that  they 
could  not  but  add  one  or  two  to  the  corners 
of  the  house.  Moreover,  they  must  needs 
cut  the  coping  into  embrasures,  but  instead 
of  leaving  them  free  for  harquebuss  or  cross- 
bow, they  peaceably  surmounted  each  with  a 


and  his  company  were  determined  to  use 
their  advantage,  and  began  to  fire  across  the 
valley.  Bargany's  men  being  now  in  danger, 
he  boldly  rode  forward  with  only  two  or  three 
friends,  and,  pushing  into  the  heart  of  his 
enemies,  called  out  loudly  for  the  Earl. 
Fighting  his  way  onward,  he  sooa  had  a  host 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


before  and  behind  him.  After  a  brave  resist- 
ance, he  was  mortally  wounded  ;  but  his 
horse  bore  him  back  to  his  own  men,  among 
whom  he  died  soon  after.  The  chronicler 
does  not  say  what  part  the  young  Liird  of 
Killochan  took  in  the  fight.  He  mentions 
the  names  of  four  comrades  who  dashed  with 
Bargany  into  the  ranks  of  the  enemy,  but 
Cathcart  is  not  among  them. 

The  next  hundred  years  saw  the  reign  of 
the  Charleses  and  thf  Revolution,  with  the 
weary  warfare  of  religious  intolerance  be- 
tween Presbytery  and  Episcopacy.  Ayrshire 
was  a  stronghold  of  the  Presbyterians,  and 
its  remoter  hills  served  as  a  favorite  retreat 
from  the  authority  of  the  Government  The 
old  laird  who  built  the  house  of  Killochan 
must  have  witnessed  the  earlier  scene  of  that 
long  strife,  for  he  was  alive  toward  the  close 
of  1612.  and  in  October  of  that  year,  "being 
sick  in  bodie,  but  haill  in  mynd,"  he  made 
his  will.  He  seems  to  have  been  in  old  age 
imbued  with  a  large  measure  of  the  re'igious 
fervor  of  the  period,  if  the  words  of  Wodrow 
as  is  probable,  are  to  be  referred  to  this  indi- 
•  vidual.  "The  old  laird  of  Carltoun  was  ex- 
traordinary at  solving  of  cases  of  conscience," 
says  Wodrow,  and  he  gives  an  instance  of 
how  Dickson,  who  afterwards  became  a  lead- 
er among  the  Presbyterians,  had  his  doubts 
and  fears  as  a  student  cleared  away  by  the 
graphic  exhortations  of  the  old  laird  to  whom 
he  applied  for  relief.  "The  said  Laird  of 
Carltoun,"  he  adds,  "was  wonderfully  holy 
and  heavenly  in  his  family.and  he  had  this  pe- 
culiar way:  He  retired  awhile  his  lone,  be  with 
him  who  would,  before  family  worship,  which 
ordinarily  was  before  dinner,  and  came  direct- 
ly out  of  his  closet  to  worship  ;  and,  be  in  the 
family  who  would,  he  retired  immediately 
after  worship  to  his  closet  till  the  meat  was 
•et  on  the  table,  and  then  he  came  to  dinner 
nd  was  extremely  pleasant,  for  ordinary,  to 
jis  conversation." 

Some  of  the  latter  lairds  of  Killochan  have 
been  in  the  army  ;  but,  though  they  have 
lived  very  little  on  their  estates  in  this  part  of 
Scotland,  they  have,  with  praiseworthy  rev- 
erence, maintained  the  old  house  in  its  origi- 
nal condition.  The  wainscot  fittings,  thick 
mullioned  windows,  old-fashioned  grates, 
chairs,  and  cabinets,  antique  four-post  beds 
and  faded  hangings,  with  the  quaint  group- 
ings of  tree  and  terrace,  and  mossy  lawn 
round  the  building,  still  remain  much  as  they 
were  during  the  lifetime  of  the  builder.  Nor 
have  they  with  less  care  guarded  the  oldest 
of  all  their  heirlooms ;  and  so,  w  tile 
the  progress  of  agriculture  has  ploughed 
the  fields,  and  swept  away  thousands 
of  the  huge  granite  boulders  which  of 
old  cumbered  the  ground,  the  gentle 
green  slope  that  looks  down  on  the 
Girvan,  and  far  away  over  to  Ireland, 
still  keeps  its  memories  of  the  past, 
and  its  gray  shattered  Baron's  Stone  of 
Killochan. 


THE   COLLIERS   OF   CARRICK. 

Comparatively  few  of  the  many  hundreds 
of  tourists  who  flock  every  summer  to  that 
part  of  Scotland  which  the  guide-books  have 
styled  "  The  Land  of  Burns  "  find  their  way 
farther  south  than  "Alloway's  auld  haunted 
kirk  "  and  the  famous  "brig"  which  lay  so 
opportunely  in  Tarn  o"  Shant  r's  line  of  re- 
treat. When  the  weather  is  clear  they  get  a 
distant  view  of  the  hills,  which  rise  beyond 
the  Doon  into  a  background  that  has  neither 
any  striking  outlines  nor  sufficient  loftiness 
to  form  a  notable  feature  in  the  remoter  land- 
scape. And  yet  if  the  visitor  whose  tirae  anc! 
route  are  at  his  own  disposal  will  bravely 
penetrate  these  far  uplands,  he  will  find  much, 
both  in  the  way  of  scenery  and  of  historic  and 
legendary  interest,  to  reward  his  enterprise. 
It  is  a  lonely  pastoral  region,  deeply  trenched 
with  long  and  narrow  valleys,  the  seaward 
portions  of  which  are  often  well  wooded  and 
contrast  with  the  singularly  bare  though  ver  • 
dant  aspect  of  the  high  grounds  on  either 
side.  The  whole  of  that  district  was  called 
in  old  times  Carrick— a  Celtic  name  still  in 
use  among  the  people,  and  descriptive  of  the 
rugged,  rocky  character  of  most  of  the  sur- 
face. The  bones  of  the  country  seem  indeed 
everywhere  to  be  sticking  through  the  scanty 
skin  of  soil  and  turf  ;  and  yet  the  abundant 
droves  of  black-faced  sheep  and  black  cattle, 
and  the  stores  of  excellent  butter  and  cheese 
which  every  year  come  out  of  these  hills  to 
the  great  markets,  bear  witness  to  the  quality 
of  the  pasture.  It  might  have  been  hoped 
that  in  so  rocky  a  tract  minerals  of  some  sort 
would  be  found  to  compensate  for  the  com- 
parative poorness  of  the  surface.  Many  a 
viewer  and  "prospector"  has  scoured  the 
sides  of  the  hills  and  valleys.  Copper,  lead, 
and  iron  in  small  quantities  have  been  found; 
but  there  seems  no  probability  that  the  pas- 
toral character  of  the  country  will  ever  be  to 
any  serious  extent  disturbed  by  mining  oper- 
ations. And  yet,  curiously  enough,  in  one 
of  the  deep  valleys  on  the  northern  margin  of 
the  hilly  tracts  of  Carrick  a  small  coal-field 
exists— a  little  bit  of  the  great  Scottish  coal- 
field, which  by  some  ancient  terrestrial  revo- 
ution  has  got  detached  from  the  rest,  and 
become,  as  it  were,  jammed  in  between  the 
two  steep  sides  of  the  valley  of  the  Girvan. 

The  colliers  of  Scotland  have  been  in  all 
time  a  distinct  and  superstitious  population. 
For  many  a  long  century  they  and  the  makers 
of  salt  were  slaves,  bought  and  sold  with  the 
and  on  which  they  were  born,  and  from 
which  they  had  no  more  right  to  remove 
:hemselves  than  if  they  had  been  of  African 
descent,  and  born  in  Carolina.  Customs  and 
seliefs  which  had  gradually  died  out  elsewhere 
naturally  lingered  for  a  time  among-  the  co1- 
iers  ;  and  indeed  until  the  general  use  of 
steam  machinery  and  the  invasion  of  an  Irish 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


19 


laboring  population,  the  Scottish  miners 
maintained  much  of  their  singularity.  Down 
in  the  little  coal-field  of  Carrick,  however, 
shut  out  from  the  rest  of  the  mining  dis- 
tricts, and  even  in  no  £>mall  degree  from  the 
country  at  large,  the  colliers  preserved  until 
only  a  few  years  ago  many  traits  which  we 
are  accustomed  to  think  had  died  out  several 
generations  before.  No  railway  came  near  the 
place  ;  no  highway  led  through  it.  Lying  near 
the  sea,  it  yet  could  boast  of  no  good  harbor 
within  reach  to  stimulate  the  coal  industry. 
Even  the  local  demand  for  coal  was  too  small 
to  admit  of  any  extensive  workings  ;  and  so 
the  mining  population  continued  the  same 
quaint  old  ways  which  it  had  been  used  to  for 
a  century  or  two,  keeping  up,  among  other 
things,  many  of 
stitions. 


its    characteristic    super- 


Some  years  ago,  on  geological  errand  bent, 
I  had  occasion  to  pass  a  number  of  months 
in  that  sequestered  locality,  and  to  mingle 
with  the  colliers  themselves,  as  well  as  their 
employers.  In  this  way  I  was  led  to  glean 
reminiscences  of  habits  and  beliefs,  now 
nearly  as  extinct  as  the  fossils  in  tho  rocks 
which  were  the  more  special  objects  of  re- 
search. These  gleanings,  as  illustrating 
former  phases  of  our  rural  population,  are 
perhaps  not  unworthy  of  record  I  propose, 
therefore,  in  the  present  paper  to  relate  an 
incident,  peihaps  one  of  the  most  striking  in. 
the  history  of  coal-mining  in  this  country, 
which  occurred  in  this  little  Girvan  coal-field, 


Much  of  my  information  was  derived  from 
an  old  collier  who  was  one  of  the  survivors. 
His  narrative  and  that  of  the  other  contem- 
poraries of  the  event  brought  out  in  a  strong 
light  the  superstition  of  the  colliers,  and  fur- 
nished additional  evidence  as  to  one  of  the 
longest  survivals  without  food  of  which  au- 
thentic record  exists. 

On  the  6th  October,  1835,  in  a  remote 
part  of  the  old  coal-mine  of  Kilgrammie, 
near  Dailly,  John  Brown,  the  hero  of  this 
tragedy,  was  at  work  alone.  Sixty-six 
years  of  age,  but  hale  in  body  and  fond  of 
fun,  he  had  long  been  a  favorite  with 
his  fellow- workmen,  more  especially  with  the 
younger  colliers,  whom  his  humor  and  story- 
telling used  to  bring  to  his  side  when  their 
own  term  of  work  was  done.  Many  a  time 
would  they  take  his  pick  from  him  and  finish 
his  remaining  task,  while  he  sat  on  the  floor 
of  the  mine,  and  gave  them  his  racy  chat  in 
return.  On  the  day  in  question  he  was  apart 
from  the  others,  at  the  far  end  of  a  roadway. 
While  there  an  empty  wagon  came  rumbling 
along  the  rails,  and  stopped  within  a  foot  of 
the  edge  of  the  hole  in  which  his  work  lay. 
Had  it  gone  a  few  inches  farther,  it  would 
have  fal  en  upon  him  and  deprived  him  either 
of  limb  or  life.  There  seemed  something  so 
thoughtless  in  such  an  act  as  the  pushing  of 
a  wagon  upon  him  that  he  came  up  to  see 
which  of  his  fellow— workmen  could  have  been 
guilty  of  it.  But  nobody  was  there.  He 
shouted  along  the  dark  mine,  but  no  sound 


and  which  furnishes  examples  of  several  of  j  came  back,  save  the  echo  of   his   own  voice. 
the  more  characteristic  features  of   the  old    That  evening   when   the   men  had   gathered 


Scottish  collier. 

In  the  quiet  churchyard  of  Dailly,  within 
hearing  of  the  gurgle  of  the  Girvan  and  the 
sough  of  the  old  pines  of  Dalquharran,  lie 
the  unmarked  graves  of  generations  of  col- 
liers ;  but  among  them  is  one  with  a  tomb- 
stone bearing  the  following  inscription  : 

JOHN  BRUVVN,  COLLIER. 

who  was  enclosed  in 
Kilgrammie  Coal-pit,  by  a  portion  of  it  having 

fallen  in, 

Oct.  8th,  1835, 

and  was  taken  out  alive, 

and  in  full  possession  of  his  mental  faculties, 

but  in  a  very  exhausted  state, 

Oct.  3ist, 

having  been  twenty-three  days  in  utter  seclusion 
from  the  world,  and  without  a  particle  of  food. 

He  lived  for  three  days  after, 
having  quietly  expired  on  the  evening  of 

Nov.  3rd, 
Aged  66  years. 

Three  weeks  without  food  in  the  depths  of 
the  earth  !  It  seemed  hardly  credible,  and  I 
set  myself  to  gather  such  recollections  as 
might  still  remain.  I  discovered  that  a  nar- 
rative of  the  circumstances  had  been  pub- 
lished shortly  after  the  date  of  their  occur- 
rence ;  but  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  make 
the  acquaintance  of  people  who  were  resident 
in  the  district  during  the  calamity,  and  from 
whom  I  obtained  details  which  do  not  seem 


round  the  village  fires,  the  incident  of  the 
wagon  was  matter  of  earnest  talk.  Every- 
body scorned  the  imputation  of  having,  even 
in  mere  thoughtlessness,  risk',  da  life  in  the 
pit.  Besides,  nobody  had  been  in  that  part 
of  the  workings  except  Brown  himself.  He 
fully  acquitted  them,  having  an  explanation 
of  his  own  to  account  for  the  movements  of 
the  wagon.  He  had  known  such  things  hap- 
pen before,  he  said,  and  was  persuaded  that 
it  could  only  be  the  devil,  who  seemed  much 
more  ready  to  push  along  empty  hutches, 
and  so  endanger  men's  lives,  than  to  give 
any  miner  help  in  pushing  them  when  full. 

In  truth,  this  story  of  the  wagon  came  in 
the  end  to  have  a  significance  little  dreamt  of 
at  the  time.  It  proved  to  have  been  the  first 
indication  of  a  "crush"  in  the  pit — that  is,  a 
falling  in  of  the  roof.  The  coal-seam  was  a 
thick  one,  and  in  extracting  it  massive  pil- 
lars, some  sixteen  or  seventeen  feet  broad 
and  forty  to  fifty  feet  long,  were  left  to  keep 
the  roof  up.  At  first,  half  of  the  coal  only 
was  taken  out,  but  after  some  progress  had 
been  made  the  pillars  w  Te  reduced  in  size,  so 
as  to  let  a  third  more  ol  the  seam  be  removed. 
This,  of  course,  was  a  delicate  operation, 
since  the  desire  to  get  as  much  coal  out  of 
the  mine  as  possible  led  to  the  risk  of  paring 
down  the  pillars  so  far  as  to  make  them  too 
ever  to  have  found  their  way  into  print.  '  weak  for  the  enormous  weight  they  had  to 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


bear.  Such  a  failure  of  support  leads  to  a 
"crush."  The  weakened  pillars  are  crushed 
to  fragments,  and  at  the  same  time  the  floor 
of  the  pit,  under  the  enormous  and  unequal 
pressure,  is  here  and  there  squeezed  up  even 
to  the  roof.  Such  was  the  disaster  that  now 
befell  the  coal-pit  of  Kilgrammie.  It  had 
been  the  early  disturbance  of  level  heralding 
the  final  catastrophe  that  sent  the  empty 
wage  n  along  the  roadway. 

For  a  couple  of  days  cracks  and  grinding 
noises  went  on  continuously  in  the  pit,  the 
levels  of  the  rails  got  more  and  more  altered, 
and  though  the  men  remained  at  work,  it  be- 
came hourly  more  clear  that  part  of  the 
workings  would  now  need  to  be  abandoned. 
At  last,  on  the  8th  October,  the  final  crash 
came  suddenly  and  violently.  The  huge 
weight  of  rock  under  which  the  galleries  ran 
settled  down  solidly  on  them  with  a  noise 
and  shock  which,  spreading  for  a  mile  or  two 
up  and  down  the  quiet  vale  ot  the  Girvan, 
were  set  down  at  the  time  as  the  passing  of 
an  earthquake.  Over  the  site  of  the  mine  it- 
self the  ground  was  split  open  into  huge  rents 
for  a  space  of  several  acres,  the  dam  of  a  pond  ( 


he  had  left  his  jacket  behind.  In  vain  they 
tried  to  drag  him  along.  "  The  jacket  was 
a  new  one,"  he  said;  "  and  as  for  the  pit,  he 
had  been  at  a  crush  before  now,  and  would 
win  through  it  this  time  too."  So,  with  a 
spring  backwards,  he  tore  himseif  away  from 
them,  and  dived  into  the  darkness  of  the 
mine  in  search  of  his  valued  garment. 
Hardly,  however,  had  he  parted  from  them 
when  the  roof  between  him  and  them  came 
down  with  a  crash.  They  managed  to  rejoin 
their  comrades;  John  Brown  was  sealed  up 
within  the  mine,  most  probably,  as  they 
thought,  crushed  to  death  between  the  ruins 
of  the  roof  and  floor. 


fer  by  any  chance  peeped 
th  of  the  day-level  of  a 


Those  who  have  ever  b 
into  the  sombre  mout 
coal-pit  will  realize  what  the  colliers  had  now 
to  do  to  make  good  their  escape.    The  tunnel 
as  a  drain;  dark  water 


simply 
I  it  air 


had  been  cut 

and  mud  filled  it  almost  to  the  roof  For 
more  than  half-a-mile  they  had  to  walk,  or 
rather  to  crouch  along  in  a  stooping  posture 
through  this  conduit,  the  water  often  up  to 
their  shoulders,  sometimes,  indeed,  with 
barely  room  for  theii  heads  to  pass  between 


gave  way,  and  the  water  strea~red   off,  while  j  the  surface  of  the  slimy  water  and  the  rough 
the  horses  at  the  mouth  of  the  pit  took  fright    roof  above.     But  at  length  they  reached  the 


and  came  scampering,  masterless  and  in  ter- 
ror, into  the  little  village,  the  inhabitants  of 
which  rushed  out  of  doors,  and  were  stand- 
ing in  wonderment  as  to  what  had  happened. 


bright  daylight  as  it  streamed  over  the  green 
holms  and  autumn  woods  of  the  Girvan,  no 
man  missing  save  him  whom  they  had  done 
their  best  to  rescue.  They  were  the  first  to 


.       11,,,..      UMI.     ,.„    i^o^.u^.  j.  iivj     wtlt   lilt    11131    iw 

But  the  disasters  above  f.  round  were  only    bring  the  tidings  of  their  escape  to  the  terri- 
a  feeble  indication  of  the  terrors  underneath,    fied  village. 


Constant  exposure  to  risk  hardens  a  man 
against  an  appreciation  of  his  dangers,  and 
even  makes  him,  it  may  be,  foolhardy.  The 
Kilgrammie  colliers  had  continued  their  work 
with  reckless  disregard  of  consequences,  until 
at  last  the  cry  arose  among  them  that  the 
roof  was  settling  down.  First  they  made  a 
rush  to  the  bottom  of  the  shaft,  in  hopes  of 


being  pulled  up  b 
time  the  shaft  h 


y  the  engine.     But  by  this 


had  become  involved  in  the 
ruin  of  the  roof.  A  second  shaft  stood  at  a 
little  distance;  but  this  too  they  found  to  be 
dosed.  Every  avenue  of  escape  cut  off,  and 
amid  the  hideous  groanings  and  grindings  of 
the  sinking  ground,  the  colliers  had  retreated 
to  a  part  of  the  workings  where  the  pillars  yet 
stood  firm.  Fortunately,  one  of  them  re- 
membered an  old  tunnel  or  "  day-level,"  run- 
ning from  the  mine  for  more  than  half-a- 
mile  to  the  Brunston  Holm,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Girvan,  and  made  originally  to  carry  off 
the  underground  water.  They  were  starting 
to  find  the  entrance  to  this  tunnel  when  they 
noticed,  for  the  first  time,  that  John  Brown 
was  not  among  them.  Two  of  the  younger 
men  (one  of  whom  told  me  the  story)  started 


No  attempt  could  at  first  be  made  to  save 
the  poor  prisoner.  As  the  colliers  themselves 
said,  not  even  a  creel  or  little  coal-basket 
could  get  down  the  crushed  shaft  of  the  pit. 
The  catastrophe  happened  on  a  Wednesday, 
and  when  Sunday  came  the  parish  minister, 
Dr.  Hill — afterward  a  conspicuous  man  in 
the  Church  of  Scotland — made  it  the  subject 
of  a  powerful  appeal  to  his  people.  In  the 
words  of  a  lady,  who  was  then,  and  is  still, 
resident  in  the  neighborhood,  "he  made  us 
feel  deeply  the  horror  of  knowing  that  a  hu- 
man being  was  living  beneath  our  feet,  dying 
a  most  fearful  death.  On  the  Sunday  follow- 
ing, we  met  with  the  conviction  that  whatever 
the  man's  sufferings  had  been,  they  were  at 
la  t  over,  and  that  he  had  been  dead  some 
days.  On  the  third  Sunday,  the  event  had 
begun  to  pass  away." 

After  the  lapse  of  some  days  the  cracking 
and  groaning  of  the  broken  roof  had  so  far 
abated  that  it  became  possible  once  more  to 
get  down  into  the  pit.  The  first  efforts  were, 
of  course,  directed  toward  that  part  of  the 
workings  where  the  body  was  believed  to  be 
lying.  But  the  former  roadways  were  found 


back  through  the  falling  part  of  the  workings,    to  be  so  completely  blocked  up  that  no  ap- 
and  found  the  old  man  at  his  post,  working  j  proach   to   the  place   could  be  had  save  by 


as  unconcernedly  as  if  he  had  been  diggin 
potatoes  in  his  own  garden.  With  some  dif- 
fic-.lty  they  persuaded  him  1o  return  with 
them,  and  were  in  the  act  of  hurrying  him 


cutting  a  new  tunnel  through  the  runs. 
This  proved  to  be  a  work  of  great  labor  and 
difficulty  ;  for  not  only  were  the  materials 
extremely  hard  through  which  the  new  pass- 


along,  when  he  remembered  that  in  his  haste  '  age  must  be  cut,   but  an  obstacle  of  another 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


kind  interrupted  the  operations — a  dead  body 
lay  in  the  pit,  and  awakened  all  the  supersti- 
tion of  the  colliers.  At  times  they  would 
work  well,  but  their  ears  were  ever  on  the 
alert  for  strange  weird  noises,  and  often  would 
they  come  rushing  out  from  the  working  in 
terror  at  the  unearthly  gibberings  which  ever 
and  anon  would  go  southing  through  the 
mine. 

A  fortnight  had  passed  away.  The  lessee, 
like  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants,  believed  poor 
Brown  to  be  already  dead,  and  brought  a 
gang  of  colliers  from  anot  er  part  of  the 
county  to  help  in  clearing  out  and  re-open- 
ing his  coal-pit.  But  a  party  of  the  men 
continued  at  work  upon  the  tunnel  that  was 
to  lead  to  the  body.  They  cut  through  the 
hard  crushed  roof  a  long  passage,  just  wide 
enough  to  let  a  man  crawl  along  it  upon  his 
elbows  ;  and  at  last,  i  arly  on  the  morning  of 
the  t  enty-third  day  after  the  accident,  they 
struck  through  the  last  part  of  the  ruined 
mass  into  the  open  workings  beyond.  The 
rush  of  foul  air  from  these  workings  put  out 
their  lights  and  compelled  them  to  retreat. 
One  of  their  number  was  despatched  to  upper 
air  for  a  couple  of  boards,  or  corn-sieves,  or 
any  broad  flat  thing  he  could  lay  hands  upon, 
with  which  they  might  advance  into  the 
workings  and  waft  the  air  about,  so  as  to 
mix  it  and  make  it  more  breathable.  Soms 
time  had  to  elapse  before  the  messenger  could 
make  the  circuitous  journey,  and  meanwhile 
the  foulness  of  the  air  had  probably  lessened. 
When  the  sieves  came  one  of  the  miners 
agreed  to  advance  into  the  darkness,  and  try 
to  create  a  current  of  air  ;  the  rest  were  to 
follow.  In  a  minute  or  two,  howeyer,  he  re- 
joined them,  almost  speech. ess  with  fright. 
In  winnowing  the  air  with  his  arms  he  had 
struck  against  a  wagon  standing  on  the  road- 
way, and  the  noise  he  had  made  was  followed 
by  a  distinct  groan.  A  younger  member  of 
the  gang  volunteered  to  return  with  him. 
Advancing  as  before,  the  same  wagon  stop- 
ped them  as  their  sieves  came  against  the 
end  of  it,  and  again  there  rose  from  out  of 
the  darkness  of  the  mine  a  but  faint  audible 
groan.  Could  it  be  the  poor  castaway,  or 
was  it  only  another  wile  of  the  arch  enemy  to 
lure  two  colliers  more  to  their  fate  ?  Gather- 
ing up  all  the  courage  that  was  left  in  him, 
one  of  them  broke  the  awful  silence  of  the 
place  by  solemnly  demanding,  "If  that'syour 
ain  groan,  John  Brown,  in  lh^  name  o'  God 
gi'e  anither."  They  listened,  and  after  the 
echoes  of  his  voice  had  ceased  they  heard 
another  groan,  coming  apparently  from  the 
roadway  only  a  few  yards  ahead.  They 
crept  forward,  and  found  their  companion — 
alive. 

In  a  few  seconds  the  other  colliers,  who 
had  been  anxiously  awaiting  the  result,  were 
also  beside  the  body  of  John  Brown.  They 
could  not  see  it,  for  they  had  not  yet  ven- 
tured to  rekindle  their  lights  ;  but  they  could 
feel  that  it  had  the  death-like  chill  of  a  corpse. 


Stripping  off  their  jackets  and  shirts,  they 
lay  with  their  naked  backs  next  to  him,  trying 
to  restore  a  little  warmth  to  his  hardly  living 
frame.  His  first  words,  uttered  in  a  scarcely 
audible  whisper,  were,  "Gi'e  me  a  drink." 
Fearful  of  endangering  the  life  which  they 
had  been  the  means  of  so  marvellously  sav- 
ing, they  only  complied  so  far  with  his  wish 
as  to  dip  the  sleeve  of  a  coat  in  one  of  the 
little  runnels  which  were  trickling  down  the 
walls  of  the  mine,  and  to  moisten  his  lips 
with  it.  He  pushed  it  from  him,  asking  them 
"no  to  mak'  a  fule  o'  him."  A  little  water 
refreshed  him,  and  then,  in  the  same  strangely 
sepulchral  whisper,  he  said,  "  Eh,  boys,  but 
ye've  been  lang  o'  coming." 

Word  was  now  sent  to  the  outer  world  that 
John  Brown  had  been  found,  and  was  yet 
living.  The  lessee  came  down,  the  doctor 
was  sent  for,  and  preparations  were  made  to 
have  the  sufferer  taken  up  to  daylight  again. 
And  here  it  may  be  mentioned  that  upon  the 
decayed  timber  props  and  old  wooden  board- 
ings of  a  coal-pit  an  unseemly  growth  of  a 
white  and  yellow  fungus  often  takes  root, 
hanging  in  tufts  and  bunches  from  the  sides 
or  roofs  wherever  the  wood  is  decaying. 
After  being  cautiously  pushed  through  the 
newly-cut  passage,  John  Brown  was  placed 
on  the  lessee's  knees  on  the  cage  in  which 
they  were  to  be  pulled  up  by  the  engine.  As 
they  rose  into  daylight,  a  sight  which  had 
only  been  faintly  visible  in  the  feeble  lamp- 
light below  presented  itself,  never  seen  be- 
fore and  never  to  be  forgotten.  That  coal- 
mine fungus  had  spread  over  the  poor  collier's 
body  as  it  would  have  done  over  a  rotten  log. 
His  beard  had  grown  bristly  during  his  con- 
finement, and  all  through  the  hairs  this  white 
fungus  had  taken  root.  His  master,  as  the 
approaching  daylight  made  the  growth  more 
visible,  began  to  pull  off  the  fungus  threads, 
but  (as  he  told  me  himself)  his  hand  was 
pushed  aside  by  John,  who  asked  him,  "Na, 
noo,  wad  ye  kittle  [tickle]  me  ?" 

By  nine  o'clock  on  that  Friday  morning, 
three-and-twenty  days  after  he  had  walked 
out  of  his  cottage  for  the  last  time,  John 
Brown  was  once  more  resting  on  his  own 
bed.  A  more  ghastly  figure  could  hardly  be 
pictured.  His  face  had  not  the  pallor  of  a 
fainting  fit  or  of  death,  but  wore  a  strange 
sallow  hue  like  that  of  a  mummy.  His  flesh 
seemed  entirely  gone,  nothing  left  but  the 
bones,  under  a  thin  covering  of  leather-like 
skin.  This  was  specially  marked  about  his 
face,  where,  in  spite  of  the  growth  of  hair, 
every  bone  looked  as  if  it  were  coming 
through  the  skin,  and  his  eyes,  brightened 
into  unnatural  lustre,  were  sunk  far  into  his 
skull.  The  late  Dr.  Sloan,  of  Ayr,  who  vis- 
ited him,  told  me  that  to  such  a  degree  was 
the  body  wasted  that,  in  putting  the  hand 
over  the  pit  of  the  stomach,  one  could  dis- 
tinctly feel  the  inner  surface  of  the  backbone. 
Every  atom  of  fatty  matter  in  the  body  seems 
to  have  been  consumed. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


Light  food  was  sparingly  administered, 
and  he  appeared  to  revive,  and  would  insist 
on  being  allowed  to  speak  and  tell  of  his 
experiences  in  the  pit.  He  had  no  food  with 
him  all  the  time  of  his  confinement.  Once 
before,  when  locked  up  underground  by  a 
similar  accident,  he  had  drunk  the  oil  from 
his  lamp  and  had  thereby  sickened  himself  ; 
so  that  this  time,  though  he  had  both  oil  and 
tobacco  with  him,  he  had  tasted  neither 
For  some  days  he  was  able  to  walk  about  in 
the  open  uncrushed  part  of  the  mine,  where 
too  he  succeeded  in  supplying  himself  with 
water  to  drink.  But  in  the  end,  as  he  grew 
weaker,  he  had  stumbled  across  the  roadway 
and  fallen  into  the  position  in  which  he  was 
found.  The  trickle  of  water  ran  down  the 
mine  close  to  him,  and  was  for  a  time  the 
only  sound  he  could  hear,  but  he  could  not 
reach  it.  When  asked  if  he  had  not  de- 
spaired of  ever  being  restored  to  the  upper 
*ir,  he  assured  his  questioners  that  he  had 
never  for  a  moment  lost  the  belief  that  he 
v/ould  be  rescued.  He  had  heard  them 
working  towards  him,  and  from  the  intervals 
of  silence  and  sound  he  was  able,  after  a 
fashion,  to  measure  the  passing  of  time.  It 
would  stem,  too,  that  he  had  been  subject 
either  to  vivid  dreams  or  to  a  wandering  of 
the  mind  when  awake,  for  again  and  again 
he  thanked  the  sister  of  his  master  for  her 
great  kindness  in  visiting  him  in  the  pit  and 
cheering  him  up  as  she  did. 

On  the  Sunday  afternoon,  when  some  of 
his  old  comrades  were  sitting  round  the  bed- 
side, he  turned  to  them  with  an  anxious,  puz- 
zled look  and  said,  "Ah,  boys,  when  I  win 
through  this,  I've  a  queer  story  to  tell  ye." 
But  that  was  not  to  be.  His  constitution  had 
received  such  a  shake  as  even  its  uncommon 
strength  could  not  overcome.  That  evening 
it  became  only  too  plain  that  the  apparent 
recovery  of  appetite  and  spirits  had  been  but 
the  last  flicker  of  the  lamp  of  lif  .  Later  in 
the  night  he  died. 

So  strange  a  tragedy  made  a  deep  impres- 
sion on  the  people  of  that  sequestered  dis- 
trict. Everybody  who  could  made  his  way 
into  the  little  cottage  to  see  a  man  who,  as  it 
were,  had  risen  from  the  dead;  and  no  doubt 
this  natural  craving  led  to  an  amount  of 
noise  and  excitement  in  the  room  by  no  means 
very  favorable  to  the  recovery  of  the  sufferer. 
But  this  was  not  all.  A  new  impetus  was 
given  to  the  fading  superstitions  of  the  col- 
liery population.  Not  a  few  of  his  old  work- 
fellows,  though  they  saw  him  in  bodily 
presence  lying  in  his  own  bed  and  chatting 
as  he  used  to  do,  nay,  even  though  they  fol- 
lowed him  to  the  grave,  refused  to  believe 
that  what  they  saw  was  John  Brown's  body 
at  all,  or  at  least  that  it  was  his  soul  which 
animated  it.  They  had  seen  so  many  wiles 
of  the  devil  below  ground,  and  had  so  often 
narrowly  escaped  with  their  lives  from  his 
treachery,  that  they  shrewdly  suspected  this  j 
to  be  some  uew  snare  of  his  for  the  purpose 


of  entrapping  and  carrying  off  some  of  theiff 
number. 

A  post-mortem  examination  followed.  But 
even  that  sad  evidence  of  mortality  failed  to 
convince  some  of  the  more  stubbornly  super- 
stitious. The  late  Dr.  Sloan,  who  took  part 
in  the  examination,  told  me  that  after  it  was 
over,  and  when  he  emerged  from  the  little 
cottage,  a  group  of  old  colliers  who  had  been 
patiently  waiting  the  result  outside  came  up 
to  him  with  the  inquiry,  "Doctor,  did  ye  fin" 
his  feet?"  It  certainly  had  not  occurred  to 
him  to  make  any  special  investigation  of 
the  extremities,  and  he  confessed  that  he  had 
not,  though  surprised  at  the  oddity  of  the 
question.  He  inquired  in  turn  why  they 
should  have  wished  the  feet  particularly 
looked  to.  A  grave  shake  of  the  head  was 
the  only  reply  he  could  get  at  the  time;  but 
he  soon  found  out  that  had  he  examined  the 
feet,  he  would  have  found  them  not  to  be 
human  extremities  at  all,  but  bearing  that 
cloven  character  which  Scottish  tradition  has 
steadily  held  to  be  one  of  the  characteristic 
and  ineffaceable  features  of  the  "deil,"  no 
matter  under  what  disguise  he  may  be  pleased 
to  appear. 

And  even  when  the  grave  had  closed  over 
the  wasted  remains  of  the  poor  sufferer,  people 
were  still  seeing  visions  and  getting  warnings. 
His  ghost  haunted  the  place  for  a  time,  until 
at  last  the  erection  of  a  tombstone  by  the 
parishioners  with  the  inscription  already 
quoted,  written  by  the  parish  minister, 
slowly  brought  conviction  to  the  minds  of 
the  incredulous.  Many  a  story,  however, 
still  lingers  of  the  kind  of  sights  and  sounds 
seen  and  heaid  as  portents  after  this  sad 
tragedy.  I  shall  give  only  one,  told  to  me 
by  an  old  collier,  whose  grandmother  was  a 
well-known  witch,  and  who  himself  retained 
evidently  more  belief  in  her  powers  than  he 
cared  to  acknowledge  in  words.  Not  long 
after  John  Brown's  death,  one  of  the  miners 
returned  unexpectedly  from  his  work  in  the 
forenoon,  and  to  the  surprise  of  his  wife  ap- 
peared in  front  of  their  cottage.  She  was  in 
the  habit,  unknown  to  him,  ot  solacing  her- 
self in  the  early  part  of  the  day  with  a  bottle 
of  porter.  On  the  occasion  in  question  the 
bottle  stood  toasting  pleasantly  before  the  fire 
when  the  form  of  the  "gudeman"  came  in 
sight.  In  a  moment  she  had  driven  in  the 
cork  and  thrust  the  bottle  und.rneath  the 
blankets  of  the  box-bed,  when  he  entered, 
and,  seating  himself  by  the  fire,  began  to 
light  his  pipe.  In  a  little  while  the  warmed 
porter  managed  to  expel  the  cork,  and  to  es- 
c  pe  in  a  series  of  very  ominous  guggles 
from  underneath  the  clothes.  The  poor  fel- 
low was  outside  in  an  instant  crying,  ' '  Anither 
warning,  Meg!  Rin,  rin,  the  house  is  fa'ing." 
But  Meg  "kenn'd  what  was  what  fu'brawly," 
and  made  for  the  bed  in  time  to  save  only  the 
last  dregs  of  her  intended  potation. 

Most  of  the  actors  in  the  sad  story  have 
passed  away,  and  now  rest  beneath  the  same 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


23 


green  sod  which  covers  the  remains  of  John 
Brown.  With  the  last  generation,  too,  has 
died  out  much  of  the  hereditary  superstition. 
For  a  railway  now  runs  through  the  coal 
field.  Strangers  come  and  settle  in  the  dis- 
trict. An  increasing  Irish  element  appears 
in  the  population,  and  thus  the  old  manntrs 
and  customs  are  rapidly  becoming  mere  tradi- 
tions in  the  place.  Even  grandsons  and  great- 
grandsons  of  the  old  women  who  "  kept  the 
country-side  in  fear,''  affect  to  hold  lightly  the 
powers  and  doings  of  their  progenitors, 
though  there  are  still  a  few  who,  while  seem- 
ingly half-ashamed  to  claim  supernatural 
power  for  their  "grannies,"  gravely  assert 
that  the  latter  had  means  of  finding  things 
out,  and,  though  bedridden,  of  getting  their 
wishes  fulfilled,  which,  to  say  the  least,  were 
very  inexplicable. 


V. 

AMONG  THE  VOLCANOES  OF  CEN- 
TRAL FRANCE. 

It  had  been  my  good  fortune  to  spend  sev- 
eral years  in  a  more  or  less  continuous  exam- 
ination of  those  volcanic  hills  and  crags 
which  form  so  characteristic  a  feature  in  the 
scenery  of  the  great  central  valley  of  Scot- 
land. I  had  traced  them  over  many  hundreds 
of  square  miles,  sometimes  underneath  the 
very  streets  and  squares  of  a'  town,  sometimes 
across  richly-cultivated  fields,  and  some- 
times far  inland  among  lonely  moon,  and 
mosses.  I  had  studied  their  association 
with  the  stratified  rocks  of  that  old 
era  of  this  country's  history  known  as 
the  Carboniferous  Period  ;  I  had  thus  been 
enabled,  in  some  measure,  to  realize  the 
scenery  of  that  ancient  time — its  wide  jun- 
gles and  lagoons,  crowded  with  graceful 
trees,  and  dotted  here  and  there  with  dark 
pine-clothed  volcanic  cones  that  sent  out 
their  columns  of  steam  and  showers  of  ashes, 
or  rolled  their  streams  of  lava  into  the  shal- 
low waters.  My  restorations  of  the  Carbon- 
iferous landscapes,  however,  could  not  but  be 
incomplete  and  unsatisfactory.  They  want- 
ed spirit  and  life,  even  more  than  the  plaster 
model  of  some  extinct  monster  constructed 
from  the  hints  that  may  be  suggested  by  a 
tooth  and  a  few  bones.  They  needed  com- 
parison with  some  region  of  recent  volcanoes, 
where,  like  the  dry  bones  in  the  field  of  old, 
they  might  straightway  be  touched  into  life. 

As  the  Scottish  volcanoes  had  been  of 
small  extent,  as  well  as  eminently  sporadic  in 
their  distribution,  it  seemed  to  promise  more 
success  to  compare  them  with  a  district  where 
similar  local  phenomena  had  been  manifest- 
ed, than  with  such  regions  as  those  of  yEtna 
or  Vesuvius,  wh<re  the  eruptions  had  been 
on  a  larger  scale,  and  had  proceeded  from 
the  different  vents  of  one  great  volcano. 
There  were  two  districts  in  Europe  that  ap- 


peared likely  to  throw  light  on  the  subject—- 
one of  these  lay  in  the  Eifel,  the  other  in  the 
high  grounds  of  Auvergne  and  the  Haute- 
Loire.  The  latter  covers  a  much  greater 
area  than  the  German  tract,  and  presents  be- 
sides a  more  extensive  variety  of  volcanic 
phenomena.  It  had  been  described  in  detail 
in  the  admirable  volume  of  Mr.  Poulett1 
Scrope,  as  well  as  in  several  other  works  and 
memoirs  by  able  geologists  in  France  and 
England.  These  writings  did  not,  indeed, 
treat  the  geological  structure  of  the  country 
from  the  particular  point  of  view  which 
chiefly  interested  me  at  the  time,  but  they 
formed  an  invaluable  guide  to  one  who  wished 
to  acquire  as  rapidly  as  possible  a  general 
knowledge  of  the  region.  So  it  was  resolved 
by  an  old  comrade  and  myself  to  go  to 
Auvergne,  and  enlarge  our  ideas  in  one  de- 
partment of  British  geology.  Between  two 
countries  once  so  closely  linked  together  in 
peace  and  war,  it  seemed  as  if  there  might  be 
another  relationship  than  that  of  mere  State 
policy  ;  and  so  with  some  such  fanciful  no- 
tion we  set  out  to  see  how  far  we  could  suc- 
ceed in  establishing  a  geological  connection 
between  Central  Scotland  and  Central  France. 
Not  many  years  ago  it  was  a  matter  of  no 
little  discomfort  to  reach  the  high  grounds  of 
the  Puy  de  Dome  and  the  other  departments 
in  the  interior  of  France.  Several  days  of 
diligence  traveling,  and  inns  none  of  the 
best,  were  hindrances  seldom  surmounted 
save  by  enthusiastic  geologists  or  by  valetudi- 
narians who  risked  all  peril  to  spend  a  few 
weeks  at  the  Baths  of  Mont  Dore.  Now, 
however,  this  state  of  things  has  changed. 
Railways  penetrate  far  into  the  upland  dis- 
tricts, and  although  this  part  of  France  is 
still  comparatively  little  known  to  English 
tourists,  :t  can  be  visited  with  even  more  ease 
and  in  a  shorter  time  than  the  remoter  parts 
of  Scotland.  Dining  on  a  summer  evening 
in  London,  one  may  take  one's  seat  in  the 
Dover  express  about  nine  o'clock,  and  next 
evening  at  the  same  hour  may  see  the  sun  set 
behind  the  long  chain  of  puys  that  dot  the 
granitic  plateau  of  Auvergne.  The  journey 
from  Paris  southward,  indeed,  is  a  dreary  and 
monotonous  one,  even  if  you  make  it  at  the 
rate  of  thirty-five  or  forty  miles  an  hour. 
Wide  uninteresting  plains  occupy  hundreds 
of  square  miles,  and  it  is  not  until  toward 
the  close  of  the  day,  as  you  approach  the  de- 
partment of  Allier,  that  the  grounds  begin  to 
undulate,  amid  hedgerows  of  acacias  and 
patches  of  woodland.  From  the  quaint  old 
town  of  Moulins  the  scenery  becomes  hourly 
more  interesting.  A  vast,  richly-cultivated 
plain,  several  miles  broad,  and  known  as  the 
Limagne  d' Auvergne,  widens  out  southward 
and  stretches  as  far  in  that  direction  as  the 
eye  can  reach.  On  the  east  lies  the  chain  of 
granite  hills  which  separates  the  plain  of  the 
Allier  from  the  basin  of  the  Loire,  while  to 
the  west  the  eye  rests  with  increasing  wonder 
upon  a  long  line  of  conical  hills,  sometimes 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


bare  and  gray,  sometimes  dark  with  foliage, 
and  grouped  like  a  series  of  colossal  forts 
and  earthworks  along  the  summit  of  a  long 
ridge.  Beyond  these,  and  seemingly  rising 
out  of  them,  towers  the  grand  cone  of  the 
Puy  de  D6me,  now  flushed,  perhaps,  with 
the  last  rays  of  the  sinking  sun.  As  the  train 
advances  southward  these  cones  become  still 
more  defined,  standing  up  dark  and  clear 
against  the  evening  sky,  until,  halting  at  last 
at  Clermont,  we  seem  to  rest  almost  at  the 
feet  of  the  giant  Puy. 

The  ancient  province  of  Auvergne — now 
parceled  out  into  the  departments  of  Cantal, 
Puy  de  Dflme,  and  Haute-Loire — comprises 
a  considerable  part  of  the  high  ground  in 
Central  France,  and  from  the  variety  of  its 
geological  structure  contains  a  diversity  of 
outline  that  contrasts  well  with  the  monoto- 
nous scenery  of  so  much  of  the  lower  parts  of 
the  country.  Granite  and  other  crystalline 
rocks  rise  from  under  encircling  plains  of 
Secondary  and  Tertiary  strata,  and  form  an 
elevated  tableland  in  the  central  districts, 
through  which  run  the  valleys  of  the  Loire, 
the  Allier,  the  Dore,  the  Sioule,  and  other 
minor  rivers. 

At  a  comparatively  recent  geological  period 
there  were  some  large  lakes  in  these  uplands, 
one  of  them  extending  over  the  modern 
Limagne  d'Auvergne  in  a  north  and  south 
direction,  between  granitic  hills,  for  a  distance 
of  fully  forty  miles,  and  with  a  breadth  of 
sometimes  twenty.  But  the  lakes  have  long 
since  disappeared,  though  their  site  is  still 
marked  by  broad  plains  formed  of  lacustrine 
strata,  often  composed  of  the  remains  of  the 
shells  that  lived  in  these  inland  waters.  It 
was  in  this  region  of  high  ground,  among 
hills  of  granite,  gneiss  and  schist,  watered 
by  large  rivers  and  by  broad  lakes,  that  those 
volcanic  eruptions  broke  forth,  to  some  of 
whose  features  it  is  the  object  of  the  present 
paper  to  direct  attention.  To  such  protrusions 
of  igneous  matter  the  great  altitude  of  some 
parts  of  the  district  is  due.  Lava  and  ashes 
have  been  thrown  out  upon  the  granitic  hills, 
so  as  to  rise  even  into  great  mountains, 
where,  as  in  the  higher  and  deeper  recesses 
of  Mont  Dore,  snow  may  be  seen  gleaming 
white  among  the  crags  under  the  glare  of 
a  July  sun. 

The  easiest  point  from  which  to  begin  the 
examination  of  this  region  is  probably  Cler- 
mont, the  chief  town  of  the  department  of 
Puy  de  Dome.  Built  round  a  small  hill  on 
the  west  side  of  the  Limagne,  where  that 
broad  valley  attains  its  greatest  width,  Cler- 
mont rises  conspicuously  above  the  general 
level  of  the  plain  (which  is  about  1,200  feet 
above  the  sea-level),  and  seems  to  nestle  at 
the  base  of  the  long  granitic  ridge  that  sup- 
ports the  chain  of  puys.  The  hill  on  which 
the  town  is  placed  is  of  volcanic  origin;  so, 
too,  are  similar  gentle  eminences  that  rise 
above  the  level  country  toward  the  east; 
north  and  south,  at  the  distance  of  a  mile  or 


two,  are  remnants  of  ancient  lava-beds,  now 
forming  flat-topped  hills;  while  to  the  west, 
down  some  of  the  narrow  gullies  that  descend 
through  the  granitic  ridge,  currents  of  lava 
have  forced  their  way  from  the  volcanic  vents 
of  the  puys  almost  to  the  very  site  of  the 
town.  Here,  then,  the  traveler  may  rest  for 
a  while,  with  plenty  of  geological  interest 
around  him  if  he  care  to  ply  his  hammer, 
and  with  not  less  of  varied  and  curious  scen- 
ery if  he  be  only  in  search  of  the  novel  and 
picturesque.  Let  no  man,  however,  whether 
geologist  or  not,  visit  Auvergne  in  July,  un- 
less fully  prepared  to  eat,  drink,  and  be 
merry,  with  the  thermometer  at  82°  or  more 
in  the  shade. 

Our  first  geological  ramble  was  begun  soon 
after  sunrise.  Passing  through  a  labyrinth 
of  lanes  and  byways,  we  succeeded  in  reach- 
ing the  base  of  the  hills,  and  began  to  wind 
upward  among  the  vineyards  that  cluster 
along  the  slopes  and  look  down  upon  the  rich 
plains  of  the  Limagne.  It  was  a  glorious 
morning.  A  light  mist  hung  over  the  valley, 
concealing  its  features  as  completely  as  if  the 
lake  which  once  filled  it  had  been  again  re- 
stored ;  while  some  twenty  miles  to  the  east- 
ward, on  the  farther  side  of  this  sheet  of  phan- 
tom water,  rose  the  purple  hills  of  the  Forcz 
that  separate  the  basins  of  the  Allier  and  the 
Loire.  Behind  us,  as  we  looked  across  the 
plain,  lay  the  great  granitic  ridge  or  plateau, 
rising  to  a  height  of  somewhere  about  1,600 
feet  above  the  plain,  and  nearly  3,000  feet 
above  the  sea.  Its  base,  up  which  we  were 
slowly  ascending,  had  a  varied  mantle  of 
cornfields  and  vineyards ;  narrow,  well- 
wooded  valleys  had  been  cut  by  streamlets 
down  its  flanks,  but  the  higher  slopes  became 
barer  by  degrees  as  they  approached  the  range 
of  volcanic  cones  that  crowns  the  summit  of 
the  ridge.  It  was  with  no  slight  interest 
that,  among  the  little  runnels  and  cart-tracks 
which  were  crossed  in  the  ascent,  we  watched 
for  indications  of  the  nature  of  the  rocks 
below.  Sometimes  a  chalky  lacustrine  marl 
was  noticed  ;  and,  as  we  drew  nearer  to  the 
granite,  we  found  ourselves  upon  pebbly 
sandstone  that  had  evidently  been  formed  out 
of  the  waste  of  the  granite  hills.  But  how 
could  the  formation  of  such  a  deposit  have 
been  effected  here?  Foot  by  foot  as  we 
crept  up  the  acclivity  this  sandstone  accom- 
panied us,  until  at  last,  at  a  height  of  prob- 
ably not  less  than  a  thousand  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  plain,  we  reached  the  granite. 
The  gravel  and  sand,  out  of  which  this  sand- 
stone had  been  made,  must  have  been  de- 
posited in  a  lake — the  old  lake,  in  short, 
which  once  occupied  the  site  of  the  Limagne. 
The  water  must  therefore  have  reached  up  as 
Far  as  to  the  point  to  which  we  had  traced 
:he  sandstone  ;  and  thus,  in  the  course  of  an 
tiour's  ramble,  we  ascertained  for  ourselves 
the  somewhat  startling  fact  that,  unless  later 
subterranean  movements  had  altered  the  rela- 
tive levels,  the  fertile  plain  below  was  for- 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


merly  covered  by  a  lake  at  least  a  thousand 
feet  deep.  Once  on  the  granite  we  were  free 
from  the  entanglements  of  enclosures  and 
fences.  As  this  rock  crumbles  away  with 
rapidity,  its  surface  is  smooth,  without  those 
rugged  features  which  mark  the  surrounding 
basaltic  rocks.  It  is  coated  with  a  short 
scrubby  grass,  save  in  those  places  where  the 
amount  of  waste  is  too  great  and  rapid  to 
allow  the  vegetation  to  take  root.  Crossing 
a  short  interval  of  this  ground,  at  the  height 
of  about  2,400  feet  above  the  sea,  we  arrived 
at  the  basalt  that  caps  the  ridge  of  Pradelle. 

From  this  height  we  commanded  a  wide 
view  of  the  Limagne,  from  which  the  morn- 
ing sun  had  now  dispelled  the  floating  mists  ; 
we  could  judge  better  of  the  disposition  of 
the  volcanic  cones,  or  puys,  and  of  the  aspect 
of  some  of  the  basaltic  plateaux  and  lava- 
streams.  But  the  most  impressive  part  of 
the  scene  was  not  in  the  traces  of  old  igneous 
eruptions,  but  in  the  evidence  of  the  power 
of  running  water.  I  had  wandered  long 
among  the  basalt  hills  of  the  Hebrides,  and 
now  recognized  the  repetition  of  many  feat- 
ures of  their  landscapes  ;  but  nothing  I  had 
seen  or  read  of  had  prepared  me  for  such  a 
stupendous  manifestation  of  the  power  of 
rain  and  rivers.  No  one,  indeed,  whose  ob- 
servations have  been  confined  to  a  country 
which  has  been  above  the  sea  only  since  the 
glacial  period,  or  the  contours  of  which  have 
been  smoothed  over  by  the  ice-sheets  of  that 
time,  can  readily  form  an  adequate  idea  of 
the  denuding  effect  of  water  flowing  over  the 
surface  of  the  land.  Standing  on  the  pla- 
teau of  Pradelle,  with  its  remnant  of  a  lava- 
current,  and  looking  down  into  the  valley  of 
Villar — a  deep  gorge,  exvavated  by  a  rivulet 
through  that  lava  current,  and  partially 
choked  ur>  by  a  later  coulee  of  lava  which  the 
stream  is  now  wearing  away — I  received  a 
kind  of  new  revelation,  so  utterly  above 
and  beyond  all  my  previous  conceptions 
was  the  impression  which  the  sight  of  this 
landscape  now  conveyed.  The  ridge  of 
Pradelle  is  a  narrow  promontory  of  granite, 
extending  eastward  from  the  main  granitic 
chain,  and  cut  down  on  either  side,  but  more 
especially  to  the  south,  by  a  deep  ravine.  It 
is  capped  with  a  cake  of  columnar  basalt, 
which  of  course  was  once  in  a  melted  state, 
and,  like  all  lava-streams,  rolled  along  the 
ground  ever  seeking  its  lowest  levels.  A  first 
glance  is  enough  to  convince  us  that  this  ba 
saltic  cake  is  a  mere  fragment,  that  its  eastern 
and  southern  edges  have  been  largely  cut 
away,  and  that  it  once  extended  southward 
across  what  is  now  the  deep  gorge  of  Villar. 
Since  the  eruption  of  the  basalt,  therefore,  the 
whole  of  this  gorge  has  been  excavated.  But 
what  agent  could  have  worked  so  mighty  a 
change?  We  bethink  us,perhaps,of  the  sea,  and 
picture  the  breakers  working  their  way  stead- 
ily inland  through  the  softer  granite.  But 
this  supposition  is  untenable,  for  it  can  be 
shown  on  good  grounds  that,  since  the  vol- 


canic eruptions  of  this  district  began,  the 
country  has  never  been  below  the  sea.  It  is 
with  a  feeling  almost  of  reluctance  that  we 
are  compelled  to  admit,  in  default  of  any- 
other  possible  explanation,  that  the  erosion  of 
the  valley  has  been  the  work  of  the  stream 
that  seems  to  run  in  a  mere  rut  at  the  foot  of 
the  slopes.  How  tardy  must  be  the  working 
of  such  an  agent,  and  how  immeasurably  far 
into  the  past  does  the  contemplation  of  such 
an  operation  carry  us  !  The  illustration  of 
the  power  of  running  water,  however,  though, 
I  the  first,  was  by  no  means  the  most  striking 
i  which  occurred  in  the  course  of  my  rambles 
in  Auvergne.  The  same  fact  stood  out  with 
a  kind  of  oppressive  reality  in  the  Haute- 
Loire,  to  which  reference  will  be  made  on  a 
subsequent  page. 

The  basalt  of  Pradelle  recalled  many  of  the 
basaltic  hills  in  various  parts  of  Scotland.  I 
could  have  supposed  myself  under  one  of  the 
cliffs  that  look  out  upon  the  deep  fjords  of 
Skye,  or  below  the  range  of  crags  on  the 
shores  of  the  Forth,  over  which  Alexander 
III.  lost  his  life,  or  even  among  some  of  the 
ridges  that  form  the  eastern  part  of  Arthur's 
Seat,  at  Edinburgh.  The  French  basalt  had,, 
indeed,  a  grayer  color  and  a  finely  cavernous 
structure,  which  distinguished  it  from  the 
hard,  black,  compact  rock  which  is  known  as 
basalt  in  Scotland;  but  they  were  columned 
both  in  the  same  way,  traversed  by  similar 
transverse  joints,  and,  above  all,  resembled 
each  other  in  their  mode  of  yielding  to  the 
weather,  and  in  their  general  aspect  in  the 
landscape. 

Quitting  this  ridge  and  walking  westward 
toward  the  Puy  de  Dome,  we  reached  the 
hostelry  of  Bonabry,  where  the  road  splits 
into  two,  one  branch  crossing  the  hilly  ground 
for  Pont  Gibaud,  the  other  turning  southwest 
for  Mont  Dore.  Here,  finding  the  morning 
too  far  advanced  for  further  breakfastless  ex- 
ploration, we  struck  down  for  the  valley  df 
Villar,  with  the  view  of  examining  more  nar- 
rowly a  later  current  of  lava  in  the  bottom  of 
the  ravine — a  barren  expanse  of  black, rugged 
scorias  rising  into  the  most  fantastic  forms, 
and  nearly  destitute  of  vegetation.  This  lava 
current  must  be  greatly  more  recent  than  that 
of  Pradelle,  for  it  has  been  erupted  after 
the  excavation  of  the  valley.  Few  walks  in 
Auvergne  are  in  their  way  more  instructive 
than  this.  The  valley  itself,  with  its  impres- 
sive lesson  of  river  action,  becomes  still  mere 
striking  when  seen  from  below.  The  Pra- 
delle basalt  hanging  over  the  ravine  stands  as 
a  silent  witness  at  once  of  the  antiquity  of 
the  earlier  volcanic  eruptions  and  of  the 
changes  of  after  time.  The  great  river  of 
younger  lava  below,  too,  is  an  object  of  un- 
ceasing interest  to  the  geological  eye,  wind- 
ing as  it  does  with  all  thecurvingsof  the  val- 
ley, now  sinking  down  beneath  a  mass  of  tan- 
gled copsewood,  and  now  rising  up  into 
black,  craggy  masses,  where  some  projecting' 
boss  of  granite  had  formed  a  temporary  im- 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


pt-diment  to  its  course.  The  rivulet  has 
actually  cut  in  places  a  second  narrow  gorge 
through  the  lava,  sometimes  of  considerable 
depth.  But  part  of  the  stream  still  appears 
to  flow  down  the  old  channel  beneath  the 
lava  by  which  that  channel  has  been  usurped, 
for  at  the  abrupt  termination  of  the  lava  cur- 
rent an  abundant  gush  of  water  issues  from 
under  the  black  rugged  c-ags. 

In  the  town  of  Clermont  itself  there  is  not 
much  of  interest.  It  is  built  round  the  sides 
of  the  gently-sloping  hill,  and  thus  the 
towers  of  the  old  church,  rising  to  a  consid- 
able  height  above  the  surrounding-  plain,  can 
be  seen  from  a  great  distance.  This  church, 
like  most  of  the  rest  of  the  town,  is  built  of 
a  dark,  compact  lava,  that  gives  a  somewhat 
sombre  hue  to  the  building.  The  same  tone 
of  coloring  would  also  characterize  the  street 
architecture  but  for  a  plentiful  use  oi  white- 
wash. One  cannot  but  admire  the  sharpness 
with  which  this  lava  has  retained  for  cen- 
•uries  its  chisel-marks  and  sculpturings;  even 
staircases,  that  have  been  trodden  so  long 
day  after  day,  seem  well-nigh  as  fresh  as 
ever.  So  black  and  dingy,  indeed,  and  so 
sharp  in  outline,  are  some  of  the  tall  pillars, 
that  they  might  readily  be  mistaken  for  so 
many  shafts  of  cast-iron.  Along  the  road- 
sides, too,  you  constantly  pass  crosses  made 
of  the  same  material — black,  sombre  things, 
rising  sometimes  from  the  edge  of  a  vineyard, 
sometimes  standing  up  alone  in  a  solitary 
part  of  the  way,  among  broken  walls  and 
thickets  of  brushwood.  It  was  not  uninter- 
esting to  remember  that  some  three  hundred 
years  ago  the  roadsides  at  home  were  studded 
with  similar  crosses,  of  which  .the  pedestals 
and  parts  of  the  stems  may  still,  here  and 
there,  be  seen  ;  and  that  these  were  in  many 
cases  made  of  an  old  lava,  just  as  in  Au-  I 
vergne.  The  Scottish  rock,  however,  had 
been  erupted  many  a  long  geological  period 
ere  the  Auvergne  volcanoes  broke  forth;  and 
though  the  crosses  hewn  out  of  it  may  not 
have  dated  further  back  than  some  of  these 
French  ones,  yet  Nature  has  dealt  kindlier 
with  them,  crusting  them  over  with  lichen 
and  moss,  and  making  them  look  as  crumb- 
ling and  venerable  as  the  crags  and  hillsides 
that  rise  around  them.  The  Auvergne  lava, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  a  singularly  barren 
stone ;  it  gives  no  harborage  to  vegetation, 
and  its  chiseled  surfaces  stand  up  now  as 
bare  and  blank  as  they  have  done  for  cen- 
turies. 

No  one  should  leave  Clermont  without 
looking  at  the  baths  of  Saint  Alyre.  A 
spring,  highly  charged  with  carbonate  of 
lime,  issues  from  the  side  of  the  hill  of  Cler- 
mont, and  deposits  along  its  course  a  con- 
stantly-increasing mass  of  white  travertin. 
In  this  way  it  has  formed  for  itself  a  natural 
aqueduct,  running  for  a  considerable  dis- 
tance, and  terminating  in  a  rude  but  pictur 
esque  arch  of  the  same  material,  below  which 
flows  a  small  stream.  The  water  that  trickles 


over  this  bridge  evaporates,  and  leaves  be- 
hind a  thin  pellicle  of  carbonate  of  lime, 
which  gathers  into  rugged  masses,  or  hangs 
down  in  long  stone  icicles  or  stalactites.  Such 
a  fontaine  ptttifiante  could  not  remain  a 
mere  curiosity  :  it  has  teen  turned  into  a 
source  of  considerable  profit,  and  manufac- 
tures for  the  visitors  an  endless  stock  of 
brooches,  casts,  alto-relievos,  basso-relievos, 
baskets,  birds'  nests,  groups  of  flowers, 
leaves,  fruit,  and  suchlike.  A  portion  of  the 
water  is  diverted  into  a  series  of  sheds,  where 
it  is  made  to  run  over  flights  of  narrow 
steps,  on  which  are  placed  the  objects  to  be 
"petrified."  By  varying  the  position  of  these 
objects,  and  removing  them  farther  and 
farther  from  the  first  dash  of  the  water,  they 
become  uniformly  coated  over  with  a  fine 
hard  crust  of  white  carbonate  of  lime,  which 
retains  all  the  inequalities  of  the  surface  on 
which  it  is  deposited.  There  is  here,  of 
course,  no  real  petrification  ;  the  substances 
operated  upon  retain  all  their  original  struc- 
ture, and  are  only  incrusted  with  the  calcare- 
ous sediment.  When  once  covered  with  this 
stony  crust,  they  may  remain  unchanged  for  a 
long  period,  being  thus  hermetically  sealed 
and  protected  from  the  influences  of  the  air. 
Let  the  reader  suppose  himself  on  the  top 
of  the  Puy  de  Dome,  four  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  forty-two  feet  above  the  sea- 
level.  Seated  on  the  greensward  which  cov- 
ers that  elevated  cone,  he  has  the  volcanic 
district  spread  out  as  in  a  map  below  him — 
cones,  craters,  and  lava  currents — clear  and 
distinct  for  many  miles  to  the  north  and 
south.  The  Puy  de  D6me,  placed  about 
midway  between  the  northern  and  southern 
ends  of  the  chain  of  the  puys,  rises  out  of 
the  centre  of  the  long  grani'.ic  ridge  or 
plateau  on  the  western  edge  of  the  valley 
of  the  Allier.  Its  position,  therefore,  is 
eminently  favorable  for  obtain  ng  a  birdseye 
view  of  the  country.  Below  us,  to  the  east- 
ward, lies  the  broad  plain  of  the  Limagne 
like  a  vast  garden,  dotted  here  and  there  with 
hamlets  and  villages  and  towns.  Yonder, 
for  instance,  are  the  sloping  streets  of  Cler- 
mont, with  their  dingy  red  tiled  houses,  and 
the  sombre  spires  of  the  old  church ;  farther 
eastward  is- Montferrand,  and  other;  of  lesser 
note  lie  in  the  district  beyond.  The  eastern 
horizon  is  bounded  by  the  range  of  the  gran- 
itic hills  of  the  Forez,  which  have  been  al- 
ready referred  to  as  rising  from  the  level  of 
the  Limagne  on  the  one  side,  and  descending 
into  the  basin  of  the  Loire  on  the  other. 
They  look  gray  and  parched  in  the  glare  of 
the  summer  afternoon,  though  softened  a 
little  by  the  purple  light  of  distance,  till  treir 
base  seems  to  melt  into  the  subdued  verdure 
of  the  valley.  Westward,  the  eye  wanders 
over  a  dreary  region  of  broken  and  barren 
ground  which  stretches  far  to  the  n<~rth,  while 
southward,  some  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  away, 
it  sweeps  round  into  the  mountains  of  Mont 
Dore  that  terminate  the  southern  landscape. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


It  is  the  nearer  prospect,  however,  which 
forms  the  chief  scurce  of  wonder  as  we  look 
from  the  summit  of  the  Puy  de  D&me.  Be- 
tween us  and  the  great  plain  of  the  Limagne 
lies  a  strip  of  the  elevated  granitic  plateau — 
a  tract  of  bare  uneven  ground,  traversed  by 
:some  deep  valleys  that  descend  toward  the 
east.  On  this  plateau  rises  a  ch  tin  of  iso- 
lated conical  hills,  stretching  due  north  and 
south  from  the  Puy  de  Dome,  which  is  the 
highest  point  in  the  district  Unconnected 
by  ridges  and  watersheds  into  a  regular  chain, 
like  a  common  range  of  hills,  they  shoot  up 
from  a  dark  sombre  kind  of  tableland,  at  a 
steep  angle,  into  cones  which  seem  to  be 
•completely  separated  from  each  other.  Cone 
behind  cone,  from  a  mere  hillock  up  to  a  good 
hill,  rises  from  the  brown  waste  for  some 
twenty  miles  to  the  north  and  south  of  the 
great  Puy.  Some  of  them  are  partially 
clothed  with  beech  .\oods,  but  most  have  a 
coating  of  coarse  grass  and  heath,  inter- 
mingled here  and  there  with  numerous  wild 
flowers.  Where  devoid  of  vegetation,  their 
slopes  consist  of  loose  dust  and  stones,  like 
par  s  of  the  tableland  on  which  they  stand. 
Wolves  still  harbor  in  their  solitudes,  among 
the  dense  woods  that  clothe  some  of  the 
slopes,  and  the  shepherds  have  to  keep  a 
good  look-out  after  their  flocks.  At  the  top 
of  the  Puy  de  Dome  I  found  a  boy,  of  ten  or 
twelve  years,  armed  with  a  club-headed  staff, 
which  he  told  me  was  used  against  the  auda- 
cious wolves,  and  h '  pointed  to  a  thick  forest 
on  a  neighboring  hill  whence  the  animals 
made  their  forays. 

Not  the  least  singular  feature  of  these  con- 
ical hills  is  that  nearly  all  of  them  look  as  if 
they  had  had  their  tops  shaved  off.  Nay, 
they  even  seem  in  the  distance  to  have  been 
more  or  less  scooped  out,  as  if  some  old  Titan 
had  taken  a  huge  spadeful  out  of  the  summit 
of  each  hill.  The  reason  of  this  structure 
may  be  guessed,  but  it  becomes  strikingly 
apparent  on  a  closer  inspection  of  the  ground 
Each  cone,  with  four  or  five  exceptions,  is 
found  on  examination  to  be  an  actual  vol- 
cano, extinct  indeed,  but  still  well-nigh  as 
fresh  as  if  the  internal  fires  had  burnt  out 
only  yesterday.  The  truncated,  hollowed 
summit  thus  turns  out  to  be  a  true  crater — 
the  vent,  in  short,  whence  the  materials  of 
the  hill  were  erupted.  Upward  of  fifty 
such  volcanoes  dot  the  ridge  to  the  north  and 
south  of  the  Puy  de  D6me,  each  formed  from 
an  independent  prifice,  and  scmetimes  ccn- 
taining.as  in  the  Puy  de  Montchi6,  no  fewer 
than  four  sepa/ate  craters  in  one  hill.  They 
consist  of  loose  ashes,  dust,  and  scoriae,  still  so 
lightly  aggregated  that,  where  the  rain  has 
bared  off  long  strips  of  the  grassy  covering, 
one  may  slide  rapidly  ankle-deep  in  debris 
from  the  top  of  a  cone  to  its-base.  Many  of 
the  cones  have  had  one  of  their  sides  re- 
moved, and  from  the  broken  part  a  current  of 
basaltic  lava  has  issued,  flowing  out  over  the 
table-land,  sometimes  for  several  miles,  and 


even  descending  tlie  valleys  thatslooe  into  the 
Limagne.  The  main  mass  of  lava,  in  many 
different  streams,  has  gone  down  the  western 
side  of  the  chain  toward  the  valley  of  the 
Sioule,  and  hence  the  strange,  sombre,  arid 
aspect  of  that  tract.  From  the  summit  of 
the  Puy  de  Dome  you  can  trace  some  of  the 
lava-streams,  marking  whence  they  issued, 
and  how  they  flowed  across  the  country. 
That  of  the  Villar  valley,  already  described, 
is  especially  noticeable,  breaking  from  the 
Puy  de  Pariou,  and  descending  toward  the 
east  in  a  black  rugged  current,  like  a  river  of 
frozen  icebergs. 

Such,  then,  is  the  general  landscape  that 
stretches  around  the  great  Puy  de  D6me.  It 
is  eminently  dreary  and  desolate  in  the  nearer 
parts,  while  in  the  eastern  distance  the  eye 
rests  on  the  bright,  corn-clad  Limagne.  The 
long  line  of  volcanic  cones  stretching  to  the 
north  and  south  affords  every  facility  to  the 
geologist,  and  presents  him,  moreover,  with  a 
class  of  phenomena  not  found  round  the  larger 
active  volcanoes  of  Europe.  The  independ- 
ence, small  extent,  number,  and  local  dis- 
tribution of  the  cones  are  features  that  throw 
light  on  what  must  have  been  the  character 
and  aspect  of  the  Carboniferous  volcanoes  of 
Central  Scotland,  to  illustrate  which  had 
been  the  object  of  my  visit  to  Auvergne.  A 
closer  examination  of  these  cones  brings  out 
a  further  parallelism  with  the  more  ancient 
vents.  The  Puy  de  Pariou,  for  example — 
one  of  the  most  accessible,  and  at  the  same 
time  one  of  the  most  perfect,  cones  of  the 
chain — lies  :  omewhat  more  than  a  mile  due 
north  of  the  Puy  de  D6me.  It  consists,  in 
reality,  of  two  craters,  but  only  a  portion  of 
the  northern  rim  of  the  older  one  is  now 
visible,  the  rest  being  occupied  by  the  newer 
crater,  which  is  stil^  in  a  perfect  state  of  pre- 
servation. Ascending,  as  is  usnal,  from  the 
east  side,  the  visitor  first  passes  over  a  lava- 
current.  From  the  foot  of  the  cone  the  as- 
cent is  tolerably  steep,  among  coarse  grass, 
violets,  martagon  lilies,  yellow  gentians,  and 
many  other  flowers,  until  the  top  of  the  older 
cone  is  reached,  whence  he  looks  down  intc 
the  first  crater,  with  the  gap  which  the  lava- 
current  has  made  in  it.  -Walking  southward 
along  its  rim,  he  sees  it  passing  under  a  later 
cone,  which  reaches  a  height  of  738  feet  above 
the  plateau  from  which  the  southern  side  of  the 
hill  rises.  After  a  second  ascent,  he  arrives  at 
last  at  the  top  of  the  Puy,  and  finds  that  the 
newer  cone  has  been  erupted  over  the  southern 
half  of  the  older  one,  and  that  it  contains  a 
beautifully  perfect  crater.  Hence,  from  the 
top  of  the  Puy  there  is  on  the  south  side 
an  unbroken  declivity,  sloping  at  ibout  35° 
down  to  the  surf  ce  of  the  table-land, 
while  on  the  north  side  the  inner  cone  de- 
scends first  into  the  older  crater,  which  half 
encircles  it.  The  last  formed  crater  measures 
3,000  feet  in  circumference.  It  is  an  inverted 
cone;  its  sides  are  smooth  and  grassy,  and 
shelve  steeply  down  to  a  depth  of  800  feet. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


They  have  been  indented  by  a  series  of  cattle- 
tracks,  rising  in  successive  steps  above  each 
other,  which  Mr.  Scrope  aptly  compares  to 
the  seats  of  an  amphitheater.  Nothing  can 
be  more  complete  or  regular  than  this  part  of 
the  Puy.  While  ascending  the  outer  slopes, 
one  looks  forward  to  reach  a  broad  flat  table- 
land on  the  top.  carpeted  perchance  with  the 
same  coarse  heather  and  wild  flowers  as  clothe 
the  sides  of  the  hill;  but,  instead  of  level 
ground,  one  gazes  down  into  a  deep,  round, 
smooth-sided  crater  covered  with  grass  to 
the  bottom.  Between  the  inward  slope  of 
this  hollow  and  ihe  outward  declivities  of  the 
Puy,  the  rim  is  at  times  so  narrow  that  you 
may  almost  sit  astride  on  it,  one  foot  dang- 
ling into  the  crater,  the  other  pointing  down 
to  the  plateau  from  which  the  hill  rises.  And 
there  with  wild  flowers  clustering  around, 
butterflies  hovering  past,  cattle  browsing 
leisurely  down  the  sides  of  the  crater  below, 
while  the  tinkle  of  the  sheep  bells  ever  and 
anon  comes  up  with  the  scented  breeze  from 
the  outer  slopes  of  the  Puy,  one  cannot  with 
out  an  effort  picture  the  turmoil  and  violence 
to  which  the  Puy  owes  its  rise,  when  the 
ground  was  rent  by  subterranean  explosions, 
and  when  showers  of  dust  aud  stones  were 
thrown  out  from  the  orifice. 

From  the  older  crater,  now  more  than  half 
filled  up  by  the  last  eruptions,  a  stream  of 
lava  passes  out  northward,  through  a  great 
gap  in  the  cone,  trending  -.t  c  nee  to  the  east, 
over  the  plateau  and  down  the  valley  of 
Villar.  Here  the  history  of  th  whole  Puy  is 
at  once  apparent.  First  of  all,  after  some 
underground  movements.a  fracture  was  made, 
through  which  gas,  steam,  ashes,  and  scoriae 
were  vomited  forth.  The  ejected  material 
fell  back  again,  partly  into  the  vent,  partly 
round  its  margin,  gathering  by  degrees 
into  a  cone  with  a  crater  in  its  centre.  A 
column  of  lava  rose  in  the  vent,  began  to  fill 
the  bowl-like  cavity  of  the  crater,  and  con- 
tinued to  well  upward  until  the  loosely  com- 
pacted sides  of  the  hill  were  no  longer  able 
to  withstand  the  pressure  of  the  increasing 
mass  of  melted  rock.  The  northern  side,  be- 
ing probably  the  weakest,  gave  way,  and 
then  the  lava  burst  out  into  the  plain  below. 
Taking  at  once  an  easterly  course,  owing  to 
the  general  slope  of  the  ground,  it  descended 
in  a  sheet  of  dark  rugged  rock  now  swelling 
up  against  ridges  that  opposed  its  progress, 
and  then  sweeping  past  them  until  it  reached 
the  beginning  of  the  hill  of  Pradelle  already 
noticed.  Here,  in  a^scene  of  singular  <»nfu 
sion,  it  broke  into  two  streams,  one  leaping 
like  a  torrent  down  the  valley  of  Villar,  the 
other  plunging  into  the  valley  of  Gresinier. 
But  the  emission  of  this  vast  body  of  melted 
rock  did  not  conclude  the  eruptions  of  the 
Puy  de  Pariou.  When  the  lava  had  perhaps 
ceased  to  flow,  the  vapor  and  gases  still 
continued  to  escape  with  violence.  By  their 
means  another  cone  was  in  time  produced, 
not  quite  on  the  former  site,  but,  as  so  often 


happens,  a  little  to  o  e  side,  so  as  to  cover 
the  southern  half  of  the  older  cone,  and  leave 
visible  that  northern  segment  of  it  from  which 
the  lava  issued.  Thus  arose  the  later  cone 
of  Pariou.  No  subsequent  eruptions  have 
disturbed  its  regularity  or  filled  up  its  crater. 
The  hand  of  time  has  not  effaced  its  smooth 
curves  and  slopes,  but  has  covered  them  with 
vegetation,  whereby  the  loose  dust  and  scoria; 
are  protected  from  the  destructive  effects  of 
heavy  rains.  After  the  lapse  of  many  a  long 
century  this  little  volcano  is  still  nearly  as 
perfect  as  when  the  last  shower  of  ashes  fell 
over  its  sides,  and  it  promises  to  remain  so 
for  centuries  to  come. 

The  Puy  de  Pariou  is  only  one  of  a  series 
of  similar  cones.  Some  have  but  one  crater, 
others  have  two,  three,  or  even,  as  in  the  in- 
stance already  cited,  four.  Each  crater  is  of 
course  the  product  of  a  different  eruption  or 
series  of  eruptions,  as  the  Puy  de  Pariou  so 
well  explains.  Several  striking  examples  of 
the  bursting  of  the  side  of  a  cone  by  the 
pre  sure  of  the  uprising  column  of  lava  with- 
in it,  occur  among  the  cones  to  the  south  of 
tne  Puy  de  D&me,  as  in  the  Puy  de  las  Solas 
and  the  Puy  de  la  Vache.  These  two  hills, 
when  seen  from  the  south,  look  like  the 
mouths  of  iwo  yawning  chasms.  Their 
southern  sides  have  been  swept  away  by  a 
black  rugged  river  of  lava,  which,  issuing 
from  the  bottom  of  each  crater,  flows  east- 
ward in  a  united  stream  for  twelve  miles 
down  a  deep,  narrow  valley.  The  scenery 
round  these  hills  is  even  more  desolate  than 
among  those  to  the  north  of  the  Puy  de 
D6me.  The  cones  and  craters  are  in  many 
places  devoid  of  all  verdure,  and  have  still 
much  of  the  blackened  and  burnt  aspect  of 
active  volcanoes.  The  lava,  too,  which  has 
spread  out  over  most  of  the  intermediate 
ground,  is  dark,  bristling,  and  sterile.  The 
whole  landscape  leaves  an  impression,  not 
easily  effaced,  of  the  vigor  of  volcanic 
agency,  and  of  its  power  to  modify,  and 
even  altogether  change  the  general  aspect  of 
a  district. 

To  one  who  had  been  at  work  for  some 
years  among  a  set  of  old  and  fragmentary 
|  volcanic  rocks,  trying  to  piece  together  por- 
I  phyrites,  dolerites,  basalts,  and  tuffs,  the 
j  sight  of  those  puys,  with  their  fresh  cones  and 
I  craters  of  ashes  and  scoriae,  and  their  still  per- 
:  feet  floods  of  lava,  was  inexpressibly  instruc- 
tive. M erely  to  cast  the  eye  over  the  landscape 
!  was  of  itself  a  memorable  lesson.  The  scene 
was  exactly  what  was  needed  to  enable  one  tc 
|  realize  the  character  of  those  old  British  Car- 
I  boniferous  volcanoes  of  which  only  such 
.1  mere  fragments  now  remain.  High  among 
I  the  uplands  of  Central  France  my  eye  was 
ever  instinctively  recalling  the  hills  and  val- 
i  leys  of  Central  Scotland,  and  picturing  their 
!  original  scenery  by  transferring  to  them  some 
!  of  the  main  features  in  the  landscapes  of  Au- 
I  vergne.  The  imagination  easily  tilled  again 
1  with  a  sheet  of  deep  blue  water  the  broad  ex- 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


panse  of  yonder  Limagne.  Vines,  and 
acacias,  and  mulberry  trees,  seemed  to  melt 
of  their  own  accord  into  stately  sigillana-, 
lepidodcndra,  or  catamites  ;  the  orchards  and 
cornfields  along  the  slopes  began  to  wave 
with  a  dense  underwood  of  ferns  and  shrubby 
vegetation;  some  of  the  cones  rose  fresh  and 
bare,  others  were  dark  with  a  growth  of  arau  • 
carian  conifer-:,  and  there,  with  but  little  fur- 
ther change,  lay  a  landscape  in  the  central 
valley  of  Scotland  during  an  early  part  of  the 
great  Carboniferous  Period.  Nor  did  a  more 
extended  examination  of  other  parts  of  the 
Volcanic  District  weaken  this  comparison, 
for  the  general  outward  resemblance  of  the 
present  volcanic  rocks  of  France  to  what 
must  have  been  the  original  aspect  of  those 
of  Scotland  at  the  geological  era  just  named, 
holds  good,  even  when  traced  into  detail. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  excursions 
from  Clermont  is  to  the  hill  of  Gergovia, 
about  six  miles  to  the  south.  We  started 
off  early  one  morning,  while,  the  sky,  which 
had  been  remarkably  clear  for  some  days, 
began  to  grow  dusky  with  heavy  clouds  that 
kept  trooping  up  from  the  southwest.  Puy 
de  Dome  had  his  head  wrapped  in  mist,  and 
giant  shadows  chased  each  other  across  the 
range  of  puys  until,  as  the  clouds  thickened, 
all  the  uplands  were  shrouded  in  an  ominous 
gloom.  Rain  at  last  began  to  fall  in  large  round 
drops,  and  a  distant  muttering  of  thunder 
was  heard  rolling  away  northward.  But  the 
morning  being  fresh  and  cool,  even  at  the 
risk  of  a  good  drenching  we  persevered. 
The  road,  like  all  the  French  military  high- 
ways, excellently  made  and  well  kept,  passes 
through  endless  vineyards,  many  of  which 
lie  among  the  broken  ruins  of  lava-flows  that 
have  descended  from  the  heights  to  the 
•westward.  At  one  point  it  has  even  been 
cut  through  a  part  of  one  of  these  lavas. 

The  hill  of  Gergovia  is  famous  in  history 
as  the  site  of  a  town  long  and  successfully 
defended  by  the  Arverni  (people  of  Au- 
vergne)  against  Caesar's  legions.  Some  in- 
teresting antiquarian  remains  had  been  found 
shortly  before  our  visit,  and  we  learnt  that 
excavations  were  about  to  be  renewed  in 
search  of  more.  But  the  hill  is  not  less  in- 
teresting to  the  geologist  than  to  the  anti- 
quary. Seen  from  the  east,  it  looks  like  a 
broad  truncated  cone;  but  it  differs  alto- 
gether in  appearance  and  origin  from  the 
true  volcanic  cones  of  the  puys.  It  consists, 
in  fact,  of  horizontal  strata  of  marl  and  lime- 
stone; about  two-thirds  of  the  way  up  lies  a 
bed  of  basalt,  which  forms  a  marked  feature 
along  the  hillside;  some  calcareous  and  ashy 
strata  next  occur,  while  the  summit  is  formed 
by  a  capping  of  basalt.  These  marls  and 
limestones  are  of  lacustrine  origin,  as  is 
shown  by  their  fresh-water  shells,  and  by  the 
caddis-worm  cases  which  they  contain.  Form 
ing  parts  of  the  deposits  of  the  old  lake  of 
the  Limagne,  they  attain  in  this  hill  a  thick- 
ness of  probably  not  less  than  1,200  or  1,500 


feet.  Ascending  one  of  the  ravines  which  deep- 
ly furrow  the  e  st  side  of  the  hill,  we  passed 
over  these  thinly-laminated  strata,  piled  over 
each  other  in  successive  layers,  and  crumb- 
ling away  like  chalk.  Every  yard  of  the 
steep  ascent  deepened  the  impression  of  the 
exceedingly  slow  rate  at  which  these  sedi- 
ments must  have  been  formed,  and  there- 
fore of  the  prodigious  laj  se  of  time  which  their 
eitire  thickness  represents.  The  morning, 
after  clearing  up  for  a  brief  space,  had  again 
become  overcast,  and  rain  began  to  fall 
as  heavily  as  before.  We  sought  shelter 
for  a  little  under  the  lower  basalt.  Had 
we  been  suddenly  spirited  away  unawares 
from  some  of  the  Scottish  glens,  and  set 
down  at  the  side  of  this  rock,  we  should 
hardly  have  recognized  the  change  of 
scene.  The  basalt  is  a  true  bed,  some 
thirty  or  forty  feet  thick,  and  is  scarcely  dis~ 
tinguishable  from  certain  Carboniferous 
basalts  of  the  Lothians.  It  is  a  hard,  dark, 
compact  rock,  somewhat  rough  and  scori- 
aceous  toward  the  bottom,  like  the  basalts 
along  the  magnificent  coast  section  near 
Kinghorn  in  Fife.  But  what  especially  in- 
terested me  was  to  find  that  the  upper  surface 
of  the  bed  was  even  and  smo>  th,  and  that  the 
marls  rested  on  it  unaltered,  the  line  of  de- 
markation  being  sharp  and  clear.  The  basalt 
had  undoubtedly  rolled  over  the  bottom  of 
the  old  lake  ;  it  rested  on  lacustrine  marls, 
and  strata  of  the  same  kind  covered  it.  But 
its  upper  surface,  so  far  from  rising  up  into 
black  bristling  masses,  like  the  subaerial  cur- 
rents of  the  puys,  was  smooth  and  even,  like 
the  top  of  a  bed  of  sandstone  or  limestone, 
and  the  marls  which  succeeded  gave  no  sign 
of  alteration  or  disturbance.  I  therefore  in- 
ferred that  the  evenn  ss  of  the  upper  surface 
of  many  Palaeozoic  and  Tertiary  basalts  in 
Scotland  offered  no  valid  objection  to  their 
being  of  the  nature  of  true  lava-currents, 
poured  out  at  the  surface,  and  not  injected  at 
some  depth  beneath  it. 

Ascending  beyond  the  prominent  zone  of 
basalt,  we  soon  reached  a  bed  of  calcareous 
peperino,  or  tuff,  that  at  once  recalled  some 
of  the  tuffs  associated  with  parts  of  the  Car- 
boniferous Limestone  of  Linlithgowshire  and 
Fife,  its  stratification  being  confused,  some- 
times highly  inclined,  changing  its  direction, 
or  even  disappearing  altogether.  Similar 
ashy  materials,  mingled  with  calcareous  mat- 
ter, occupy  tl.3  remainder  of  the  hill  up  to 
the  cake  of  basalt  which  crowns  the  summit, 
and  show  how  among  the  fine  sediments  of 
the  ancient  lake  volcanic  ejections  were  occa- 
sionally thrown  down. 

We  intended  to  make  a  circuit  of  Gergovia, 
descending  on  the  northwest  side  toward  the 
strange  isolated  castle-crowned  crag  of  Mont- 
rognon.  But  the  rain,  which  had  fallen 
with  scarcely  an  intermission  since  we  began 
the  ascent,  now  came  down  in  torrents.  We 
took  refuge  in  a  little  cave  in  the  calcareous 
peperino,  which  looked  eastward  across  the 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


Limagne  to  the  distant  mountains  of  the 
Loire  and  southward  to  the  volcanic  heights 
of  the  Velay.  But  the  landscape  was  blotted 
out  in  so  thick  a  veil  of  falling  water  that  we 
could  hardly  distinguish  the  form  of  the  trees 
at  a  short  distance  down  the  slopes.  It  was 
an  instructive  lesson  in  denudation  to  sit  at 
the  mouth  of  the  cave  and  watch  the  increase 
of  the  runnels.  Over  ground  which  in  the 
morning  was  as  dry  and  parched  as  a  drought 
of  some  weeks'  duration  could  make  it,  water 
now  poured  in  hundreds  of  rivulets,  acquiring 
a  milky  color  from  the  marl  debris  which  it 
swept  away  in  its  descent.  One  could  see 
how  rapid  must  be  the  waste  of  these  soft 
calcareous  rocks.  Baked  and  cracked  by  the 
fierce  heat  of  summer,  their  surface  crumbles 
down.  Every  shower  loosens  and  removes 
portions  of  this  disintegrated  surface  and 
prepares  the  way  for  the  action  of  the  shower 
that  succeeds.  It  is  by  these  means,  joined 
with  the  undermining  agency  of  rivers,  that 
the  d^ep  and  wide  valleys  of  these  districts 
have  been  excavated. 

Sitting  in  the  cave  while  the  deluge  con- 
tinued outside,  we  had  leisure  to  reflect  on 
the  geological  history  of  the  hill.  Its  strata 
were  elaborated  at  the  bottom  of  the  lake  that 
filled  the  broad  valley  of  the  Limagne.  Leaf  af- 
ter leaf,  and  layer  after  layer  of  marl1  and  lime- 
stone were  slowly  laid  down,  derived  mainly 
from  the  crumbling  remains  of  shells,  cyprids, 
and  other  living  creatures  that  tenanted  the 
water.  The  rate  of  growth  of  these  tranquil 
deposits  must  have  been  remarkably  slow. 
When  a  thickness  of  at  least  a  thousand  feet 
of  them  had  been  formed,  a  volcano  sprang 
up  in  the  neighborhood,  and  rolled  into  the 
lake  the  stream  of  lava  represented  by  the 
lower  bed  of  basalt.  Fine  calcareous  sedi- 
ment, however,  began  to  be  deposited  anew 
over  the  floor  of  lava,  yet  the  volcanic  forces 
had  not  become  wholly  quiescent,  for  from 
time  to  time  showers  of  ashes  were  thrown 
out,  which,  falling  into  the  lake,  gave  rise  to 
those  beds  of  pepenno,  in  one  of  which  w 
were  now  taking  refuge  from  the  storm.  Af- 
terward, another  stream  of  lava  was  erupted, 
forming  the  present  summit  of  the  hill.  How 
much  farther  the  series  may  have  originally 
extended  cannot  now  be  discovered,  since  if 
anything  was  deposited  on  the  surface  of  the 
second  basalt  it  has  been  subsequently  worn 
away.  The  rain  at  last  ceasing,  we  de- 
scended by  an  endless  series  of  turnings  and 
windings  tq  a.-  tree-shaded  road  that  led 
through  cornfields,  now  heavy  with  their 
golden  crop.  Away  to  the  left  we  could  see 
the  Chateau  de  Montrognon,  a  ruined  fortal- 
ice  perched  on  the  summit  of  a  nanow  and 
precipitous  basaltic  hill.  Farther  over  lay 
the  high  ground  of  the  puys,  with  the  rain- 
clouds  still  floating  over  it.  As  we  advanced, 
however,  the  sky  began  to  clear,  patches  of 
deep  blue  now  and  then  appeared  through 
gaps  in  the  driving  clouds,  until  the  last 
mist-wreath  rose  from  the  great  Puy  de 


Dome,  and,  amid  gleams  of  bright  sunshine^ 
we  re-entered  Clermont  about  noon. 

The  journey  to  Mont  Dore,  being  uphill 
nearly  all  the  way,  takes  the  greater  part  of 
a  dav.  The  first  half  of  the  road  winding  up- 
the  side  of  the  granitic  plateau  crosses  sev- 
eral of  the  lava-streams  which  have  descended 
the  valleys,  like  that  from  the  cone  of  Pariou, 
and  at  last  reaches  the  desolate  table-land  on 
which  runs  the  chain  of  the  puys.  A  good 
view  is  obtained  of  several  of  the  cones  on 
the  south  side  of  the  Puy  de  Dflme,  the 
ruined  yawning  craters  of  the  Puy  de  las 
Solas  and  the  Puy  de  la  Vache  being  espe- 
cially noticeable,  with  their  now  silent  rivers, 
of  black  rugged  lava.  From  the  half-way- 
house,  the  road  runs  southward  over  the  un- 
dulating surf  ace  of  the  plateau,  until  it  begins 
the  ascent  of  the  Mont  Dore  hills.  These 
heights,  in  their  lower  portions,  are  tolerably 
green,  and  constantly  recall  to  my  memory 
parts  of  the  basaltic  scenery  of  Skye  and 
Mull.  Numerous  blocks  of  basalt,  some- 
times of  considerable  size,  are  scattered  over 
the  surface,  and  often  lie  in  such  positions 
that  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  action  of  the 
atmosphere,  or  of  running  water,  could  have 
placed  them  there.  I  kept  an  eye  on  the 
alert  to  detect  a  striated  or  polished  surface; 
but  there  is  little  rock  exposed  in  places 
along  the  road,  and  I  was  unsuccessful.  It 
seemed  at  the  time,  however,  to  be  far  from 
unlikely  that  some  of  these  great  blocks  of 
stone  had  been  ice-borne.  When  the  glaciers 
of  the  Alps  filled  the  valley  of  the  Lake  of 
Geneva,  at  a  height  of  no  more  than  twelve 
hundred  fe.t  above  the  sea,  there  seems  no 
reason  why  glaciers  should  not  have  descended, 
from  the  Mont  Dore  mountains,  which  now 
form  the  highest  ground  in  Central  France, 
rising  in  the  Pic  de  Sancy  to  a  height  of  sir 
thousand  two  hundred  and  seventeen  feet. 
At  this  day,  indeed,  snow  remains  unmelted 
in  the  higher  recesses  of  these  mountains 
even  in  midsummer.  I  am  not  aware,  how- 
ever, that  the  existence  of  glaciers  has  ever 
been  recognized  here,  and  I  had  no  time  even 
to  make  any  attempt  to  solve  the  question  for 
myself.  The  occurrence  of  the  scattered 
blocks,  and  of  some  coarse  unstratified  de- 
tritus, in  the  steep  defile  that  descends  from 
the  east  into  the  valley  of  the  Dordogne,  was 
at  least  sufficient  to  suggest  the  possibility  of 
a  partially  glacial  origin  for  some  of  the  deep> 
valleys  of  the  Mont  Dore. 

The  Baths  lie  in  a  valley  of  surpassing; 
loveliness,  hemmed  in  by  lofty  mountains 
and  huge  precipices.  The  climate  is  delicious 
as  a  contrast  to  the  scorching  sultriness  of 
the  lower  plains,  and  hence  the  locality  has 
been  a  watering-place  since  the  days  of  the 
Roman  occupation  of  Gaul.  We  had  time 
only  to  get  a  peep  at  the  conglomerates  and 
trachytes  of  this  great  volcanic  district. 
Everything  is  on  a  scale  so  much  vaster  tha» 
n  the  country  of  the  Puy  de  D&me,  that  the 
first  impression  of  the  geologist  is  one  of  be- 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


31 


wilderment.  We  did  not  remain  "  ,«^  enough  :  agent  in  scooping  out  this  great  indentation 
to  g.t  rid  of  this  feeling,  and  at  this  moment  in  the  flanks  of  Mont  Dore.  Here  and 
I  have  a  confused  remembrance  of  vast  irreg-  there,  in  the  center  of  the  valley,  it  has  left 
ular  sheets  of  trachytic  lava,  separated  by  isolated  patches  of  the  beds  of  rock  that  oc- 
piles  of  volcanic  ash  and  conglomerate,  the  '  cur  on  either  side,  such  as  the  picturesque 
whole  thrown  together  in  a  way  which  at  the  conical  crag  on  which  stands  the  ruinous 
time  it  seemed  hopeless  to  attempt  to  un-  j  castle  of  Murol.  These  outliers  are  si.ent 
ravel ;  of  dykes  and  veins  of  basalt,  and  j  witnesses  of  the  reality  of  the  erosion.  The 
currents  of  lava,  belonging  to  much  more  '  lava-current  at  the  bottom  of  the  valley  has 
recent  eruptions  t.iat  flowed  down  the  deep  certainly  not  been  erupted  since  the  time  ot 
valleys  which  had  been  excavated  out  oi  the  the  Romans.  It  must,  therefore,  be  at  least 
ancient  lavas.  2,000  years  old,  and  may,  for  aught  we  can 

Contenting  ourselves  with  a  mere  survey  tell,  be  ten  or  a  hundred  times  older.  Yet 
of  its  external  features,  we  left  the  Mont  since  its  eruption,  the  action  of  the  river, 
Dore  district  by  the  road  which,  on  re-ascend-  J  though  here  and  there  bisecting  the  lava,  has 
ing  from  the  villey  of  the  Dordogne,  strikes  |  nevertheless  been,  on  the  whole,  but  trifling; 
toward  the  east  and  then  sweeps  down  into  ,  indeed  the  amount  of  excavation  effected 
the  valley  of  Chambon.  The  Baths,  after  '  since  the  eruption  of  this  lava  probably  falls 


lying  for  some  hou  -s  under  the  shade  of  the 
great  hills,  were  bathed  in  sunlight,  and  full 
of  bustle,  as  we  drove  through  the  streets. 
Invalids,  valetudinarians,  and  fashionable 
visitors  may  be  seen  passing  to  and  fro  be- 
tween the  hotels  and  the  central  building 
where  the  waters  are  dispensed.  Some  are 
borne  in  sedan-chairs,  but  the  greater  num- 


far  short  of  a  thousandth  part  of  the  general 
erosion  of  the  valley.  Yet  the  excavation  of 
the  valley  of  Chambon  is  the  latest  and  per- 
haps the  shortest  of  all  the  stages  which  the 
geology  of  the  district  indicates.  How  vast 
must  have  been  that  earlier  period  wherein 
were  deposited  those  fine  alternations  of  lime 
and  clay  which  form  hills,  such  as  Mont 


ber  perform  the  short  journey  on  foot.  Men  |  Perrier,  several  hundred  feet  in  height, 
and  women,  as  soon  as  they  imbibe  their  !  divisible  into  distinct  zones,  each  character- 
draught,  hurry  home  holding  their  mouths —  ized  by  peculiar  assemblages  cf  fossils.  It 
a  sight  whic'.x.  is  now  and  then  irresistibly  ]  is  only  by  thus  advancing,  step  by  step,  back- 
comic — as  where  a  portly  priest,  perhaps  of  j  ward  into  the  remote  past,  that  we  begin  to 
same  threescore,  shuffles  back  to  his  hotel '  appreciate  the  antiquity  c  f  the  Tertiary 
with  the  ends  of  his  dress  muffled  round  his  groups  of  strata,  and  to  icalize,  in  some 
mouth  and  nose.  On  inquiry  we  learnt  that  measure,  the  extent  of  that  long  history  of 


this  proceeding  is  meant  to  prevent  the  gas 
from   escaping   after   the   morning    dose   of 


physical  and  organic  change  of  which  these 
strata  contain  only  the  last  chapters. 


water — a  precaution  without  which  k  is  held  We  hurried  onward  from  Issoire  up  the 
impossible  to  derive  the  full  benefits  of  les  ,  plain  of  the  Allier,  catching  a  g  impse  of  the 
eaux  mindrales.  \  little  contorted  coal-field  of  Brassac — an  out- 

The  journey  from  Mont  Dore  les  Bains  to  j  let  of  true  Carboniferous  strata,  resting  in  a 
the  plain  of  the  Allier  at  Issoire  is  probably  |  hollow  of  the  crystalline  schists,  and  over- 
one  of  the  most  interesting  in  Central  France,  i  lapped  by  Tertiary  marls  and  limestones 


From  the  summit  level  of  the  road  the  eye 
wanders  over  a  wide  sweep  of  mountains  of 
volcanic  origin,  traversed  by  wide  valleys  and 
narrow  gorges.  Southward,  in  the  dark 
shady  rifts  of  the  higher  peaks,  lie  gleaming 
patches  of  snow,  and  the  breeze  that  plays 
about  these  uplands,  even  in  the  bright  sun- 
shine, is  cool  and  refreshing.  In  the  course 
of  the  descent  we  again  observed  evidence  of 
lava-flows  of  several  distinct  ages,  some  of 
them  high  up  along  the  sides  of  valleys  which 
had  since  been  excavated  through  them  ;  old 
river  gravels,  too,  far  above  the  channels  of 
the  present  streams;  and  in  the  bottom  of  the 
valley,  following  all  its  curves  like  a  river,  a 
current  of  black  rugged  lava,  which  in  one  or 
two  places  rose  up  into  the  most  fantastic 
masses.  The  impression  of  the  immense 
lapse  of  time  represented  by  these  Tertiary 
formations  and  their  subsequent  denudation 
was  deepened  tenfold  as  we  threaded  this 
valley  of  Chambon.  The  stream  which 
meanders  through  the  broader  meadow- 
lands,  and  leaps  down  the  narrower 
defiles,  has  undoubtedly  been  the  main 


which  stretch  southward  from  the  Limagne. 
Here  and  there  in  the  valley  were  volcanic 
mounds,  sometimes  capped  with  little  towns, 
so  that,  although  we  had  quitted  the  district 
of  great  lava-streams,  we  were  far  from  hav- 
ing reached  the  limits  of  the  volcanic  dis- 
trict. The  town  of  Brioude  lies  at  the  south- 
ern extremity  of  that  great  lacustrine  deposit 
of  the  valley  of  the  Allier,  so  conspicuously 
displayed  in  the  Limagne  d'Auvergne.  The 
granitic  hills  close  in  upon  the  river,  and 
thence  swell  southward  into  the  mountains 
of  La  Margeride  and  the  uplands  of  the 
Haute-Loire.  Of  Brioude  itself  I  have  a 
pleasant  recollection  as  a  quaint  rambling 
town  wita  some  large  decayed  houses  that 
seem  to  have  once  been  tenanted  by  a  better 
class  of  inmates.  The  hotel  at  which  we 
stayed  was  one  of  these.  From  a  retired 
street  we  entered  a  low  archway,  and  found 
ourselves  in  a  dark  room  with  a  large  fire- 
place, now  used  as  a  kitchen.  A  number  of 
doors  opened  out  of  the  farther  side  of  the 
room,  and  through  one  of  them  we  were 
ushered  into  a  lobby  with  broad  staircase 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


and  carved  banisters.  Up  and  down,  through 
one  passage  into  another,  we  at  last  halted 
at  a  recess  on  one  of  the  landings,  and  were 
shown  into  a  large  wainscoted  bedroom.  Its 
tarnished  mirrors,  faded  green-velvet  chaiis, 
old-fashioned  cabinets  and  tables,  were  cer- 
tainly not  the  kind  of  furniture  one  would 
have  expected  to  see  in  a  quiet  hotel  in  a  re- 
mote little  town.  There  was  a  taste  and 
harmony  about  the  whole,  and  they  fitted  so 
well  with  the  character  of  the  rest  of  the 
house,  as  to  suggest  that  the  place  had  been 
the  residence  of  some  decayed  family,  and 
that  not  many  years  could  have  elapsed  since 
it  passed  into  the  hands  of  an  innkeeper. 

Crossing  the  Allier  by  the  fine  bridge  at 
Old  Brioude,  and  bidding  adieu  to  that  noble 
river,  we  started  for  Le  Puy.  Our  course 
lay  toward  the  southeast,  up  a  range  of 
granitic  heights,  traversed  by  numerous  nar- 
row and  deep,  but  often  thickly-wooded 
ravines,  and  with  fragments  of  ancient  basalt 
now  and  then  protruding  by  the  roadside, 
or  along  the  upper  edge  of  a  steep  bank. 
The  country,  however,  remains  somewhat 
bare  and  uninteresting;  nor  until  one  begins 
to  descend  toward  the  basin  of  the  Loire, 
and  catches  sight  of  the  range  of  volcanic 
hills  and  cones  that  encircle  Le  Puy,  does  its 
interest  revive. 

Le  Puy  is  one  'of  the  most  picturesque 
towns  in  France,  built  round  a  conical  hill, 
•which  rises  in  the  valley  between  the  River 
Borne  and  another  tributary  of  the  Loire. 
An  abrupt  crag  of  breccia,  crowned  with  a 
bronze  statue  of  the  Virgin,  overhangs  it  on 
the  north;  while  lower  down  in  the  plain  a 
tall  massive  column  of  the  same  rock  sup- 
ports the  small  and  seemingly  inaccessible 
church  of  St.  Michel.  The  country  rises 
rapidly  on  all  sides,  so  that  Le  Puy  lies  em- 
bosomed among  hills — vast  piles  of  lava,  and 
•cones  of  ash  formed  by  many  different  erup- 
tions, sweeping  away  south  into  the  heights 
of  Mont  Mezen  and  the  long  plateau  which 
here  separates  the  waters  of  the  Allier  from 
those  of  the  Loire. 

The  geologist  could  hardly  pitch  upon  a 
locality  where  more  may  be  learned  in  so 
narrow  a  compass.  Le  Puy  lies  in  the  center 
of  another  Tertiary  lake,  some  twenty  miles 
long  and  twelve  or  fourteen  broad.  This 
lake  occupied  a  hollow  in  the  great  granitic 
framework  of  the  country,  and,  like  the 
Limagne  d'Auvergne,  gave  rise  to  the  slow 
accumulation  of  fine  marls,  limestones,  and 
sandstones,  which  attained  a  united  thickness 
of  hundreds  of  feet.  Over  the  top  of  these 
horizontal  strata,  lavas  and  ashes  were 
erupted  to  a  depth  of  three  or  four  hundred 
feet,  so  as  wholly  to  cover  up  the  lacustrine 
deposits,  and  obliterate  the  site  of  the  lake. 
Since  these  events,  the  Loire  and  its  tribu- 
taries have  been  ceaselessly  at  work  in  deep- 
ening and  widening  their  channels.  And 
now,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  these  streams 
have  actually  cut  their  way  down  through 


the  solid  basalt,  and  a  great  part  of  the  old 
lake  formations.  They  have,  in  short,  ex- 
cavated a  series  of  valleys,  several  hundred 
feet  deep,  and  sometimes  of  considerable 
width,  along  the  sides  of  which  are  exposed 
the  remaining  edges  of  the  strata  that  have 
been  worn  away.  Standing  on  the  summit 
of  the  Montagne  de  Denise,  and  looking 
round  upon  the  valleys  and  ravines  on  every 
side,  each  traversed  by  what  seemed  such  an 
insignificant  stream,  I  felt  as  if  a  new  geo- 
logical agent  were  for  the  first  time  made 
known  to  me.  Striking  as  are  the  proofs  of 
erosion  in  the  country  of  the  Limagne,  they 
fall  far  short  of  these  in  the  Haute-Loire. 
To  be  actually  realized,  such  a  scene  must  be 
visited  in  person.  No  amount  of  verbal  de- 
scription, not  even  t!  e  most  careful  drawings, 
will  convey  a  full  sense  of  the  magnitude  of 
the  changes  to  one  who  is  acquainted  only 
with  the  rivers  of  a  glaciated  country  such  as 
Britain.  The  first  impression  received  from 
a  landscape  like  that  round  Le  Puy  is  rather 
one  of  utter  bewilderment.  The  upsetting 
of  all  one's  previous  estimates  of  the  power 
of  rain  and  rivers  is  sudden  and  complete. 
It  is  not  without  an  effort,  and  after  having 
analyzed  the  scene,  feature  by  feature,  that 
the  geologist  can  take  it  all  in.  But  when 
he  has  done  so,  his  views  of  the  effects  of 
subaerial  disintegration  become  permanently 
altered,  and  he  quits  the  district  with  a  rooted 
conviction  that  there  is  almost  no  amount  of 
waste  and  erosion  of  the  solid  framework  of 
the  land  which  may  not  be  brought  about  in 
time  by  the  combined  influence  of  springs, 
frost,  rain,  and  rivers. 

The  volcanic  phenomena  of  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Le  Puy  are  likewise  full  of  interest, 
and,  owing  to  the  numerous  deep  ravines, 
they  can  be  easily  studied  in  admirable  natural 
sections.  The  sheets  of  lava,  often  beauti- 
fully columnar,  recall  many  of  the  basalts  of 
Scotland.  The  beds  of  peperino,  or  tuff, 
likewise  bear  the  strongest  resemblance  to 
some  of  the  Carboniferous  tuffs  of  the  Loth- 
ians.  Indeed,  many  parts  of  the  scenery 
differ  but  little  from  some  of  the  Scottish 
volcanic  districts.  We  found  the  cones  of 
scoriae  more  numerous,  but  less  perfect  than 
round  the  Puy  de  D6me  ;  as  if  they  belonged 
to  an  earlier  era,  and  had  consequently  been 
longer  exposed  to  the  wasting  effects  of  time. 
But  this  greater  antiquity  is  occasionally  pro- 
ductive of  much  advantage  to  the  geologist, 
for  it  presents  him  with  chasms  and  cliffs, 
without  which  he  would  miss  many  incidents 
in  the  geological  history  of  the  district. 
Thus,  near  Le  Puy,  the  volcanic  cone  of 
Mont  Denise,  so  well  known  for  the  interest- 
ing fossils  which  have  been  found  in  its  un- 
derlying gravels,  has  had  its  western  front 
exposed  partly  by  nature  and  partly  by  man. 
By  this  means  are  laid  bare  the  strata  of  vol- 
canic breccia  that  rest  on  the  marls  01  the  old 
lake  ;  on  a  worn  surface  of  the  breccia  comes 
a  band  of  true  river  gravel  now  several  bun- 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


33 


dred  feet  above  the  present  bed  of  the  Borne, 
while  associated  with  this  gravel  there  is 
sometimes  a  newer  volcanic  tuff.  Through 
these  various  deposits  the  volcano  of  Mont 
Denise  broke  out,  piling  up  the  mound  of 
loose  scoriae  and  ashes  that  form  the  hill, 
Here  we  saw,  what  it  had  not  been  our  good 
fortune  to  meet  with  in  the  Puy  de  D5me — 
the  actual  section  of  a  volcanic  vent.  The 
sides  were  smooth  and  worn,  and  the  bed  of 
hard  breccia,  which  had  been  perforated 
nearly  vertically,  still  retained  the  grooving 
and  polishing  produced  by  the  friction  of  the 
ejected  scorice.  The  vent  was  filled  up  with 
a  black  scoriaceous  lava,  while  several  lava 
fintlJi's  that  had  rolied  down  the  hillside  now 
formed  dark  masses  of  prominent  crag  and 
cliff.  This  little  volcano  bore  a  close  resem- 
blance to  the  upper  part  of  Arthur's  Seat  at 
Edinburgh.  In  each  case  a  column  of  lava 
is  surrounded  by  an  outer  envelope  of  loose 
ashes,  over  which  various  currents  of  lava 
have  rolled  down  from  the  crater. 

With  no  little  reluctance,  and  not  until  the 
sun  had  dipped  behind  the  western  hills,  did 
we  quit  the  slopes  of  Mont  Denise.  The 
evening,  after  a  day  of  mingled  storm  and 
sunshine,  was  beautiful,  and  the  whole  of  that 
wondrous  landscape  lay  bright  and  clear 
around.  It  was  the  last  evening,  too,  which 
we  had  to  spend  in  the  volcanic  region  of 
Central  France  ;  nor  could  we  have  secured 
a  more  auspicious  sky  or  a  more  favorable 
locality  for  taking  a  last  view  of  the  scenery 
and  summing  up  the  results  of  the  journey. 
Sitting  on  a  pile  of  loose  cinders  on  the  top 
of  the  hill,  we  watched  the  level  rays  lighting 
up  the  vast  basalt  plateau  that  stretched  away 
for  miles  to  the  west,  while  each  of  the  many 
cones  that  dotted  the  plain  cast  its  long 
shadow  toward  us.  With  undiminished  won- 
der we  gazed  again  at  the  deep  ravines  and 
valleys  by  which  the  plateau  is  broken  up, 
each  with  its  streamlet  meandering  like  a  sil- 
ver thread  between  the  slopes.  The  sunlight 
lay  warm  and  bright  on  the  town  of  Le  Puy 
in  the  valley  below,  with  its  isolated  crag  of 
La  Vierge,  and  its  church  crowned  pinnacle 
of  St.  Michel — two  rocks  that  remain  to 
record  the  enormous  erosion  of  these  valleys. 
The  castle  of  Polignac— built  on  another  out- 
lying crag  farther  down  the  plain — stood  up 
in  the  deep  shadow  of  Mont  Denise.  East- 
ward, the  gorges  that  open  into  the  Loire 
gleamed  white  as  the  sunset  fell  along  their 
bars  of  pale  marls  and  limestones,  and  their 
capping  of  basalt.  Beyond  these,  cone  rose 
behind  cone,  amid  piles  of  lava-currents  of 
many  different  ages  ;  each  sunward  slope  and 
crest  was  now  flushed  with  a  rosy  hue  deepen- 
ing into  purple  in  the  distance,  until,  far  away 
as  the  eye  could  reach,  the  mountains  of 
Mont  Mezen  were  steeped  in  the  softest 
violet,  that  melted  into  the  twilight  *>f  the 
eastern  sky. 

And  here  we  take  leave  of  the  volcanoes  of 
Central  France.  Coming  as  learners  to  a 


district  which  had  been  already  often  and 
carefully  explored,  we  gained  such  a  vivid 
impression  of  the  phenomena  of  the  country 
as  can  only  be  obtained  from  an  actual  visit. 
We  were  now  able  to  realize,  with  a  clearness 
till  then  unlocked  for,  the  original  features  of 
those  ancient  Scottish  igneous  rocks,  among 
whose  fragmentary  relics  we  had  been  at 
work  for  years.  In  the  form  of  their  cones, 
their  distribution,  their  aspect  in  the  land- 
scape, the  limited  extension  of  their  ashes, 
ihe  form  and  disposition  of  their  lava-cur- 
rents, the  structure  of  their  craters,  and  their 
relation  to  the  underlying  and  to  the  con- 
temporaneous stratified  deposits,  these  extinct 
Tertiary  volcanoes  of  France  cast  a  flood  of 
what  to  me  was  new  light  upon  the  long- 
extinct  Carboniferous  volcanoes  of  Scotland. 
I  seemed  no  longer  to  be  dealing  with  con- 
jectures, but  with  sober  truths.  To  th:  his- 
tory of  the  igneous  rocks  of  my  own  country 
there  was  now  imparted  a  freshness  and  real- 
ity such  as  it  did  not  possess  before.  More 
than  ever  did  these  rocks  stand  forti,  not  as 
mere  mineral  masses,  to  be  described  in  text- 
books  as  occupying  definite  areas  of  ground, 
or  to  be  arranged  by  hand-specimens  in  a 
museum  as  so  many  mineralogical  compounds, 
but  as  the  records  of  a  long  geological  aistory 
which  they  would  unfold  if  only  questioned 
in  the  right  way.  And  the  main  resul  '  of 
our  wanderings  in  the  Auvergne  and  the 
Velay  was  to  show  us  how  this  question 
should  be  carried  on. 

Nor  did  we  value  less  the  new  and  enlarged 
news  which  those  rambles  gave  us  of  the  po- 
tency of  rain,  rivers,  and  other  atmospheric 
agencies,  in  effecting  the  degradation  of  the 
land.  Nothing  we  had  read  in  geological 
literature,  not  even  Mr.  Scrope's  classic  de- 
scriptions of  this  very  region,  had  prepared 
us  for  the  contemplation  of  changes  so  stu- 
pendous as  those  of  the  erosion  of  the  ravines 
and  valleys  of  Le  Puy.  To  look  upon  them 
for  the  first  time  was,  as  I  have  said,  like  a 
new  revelation,  which  in  an  instant  uprooted 
a  host  of  narrow  long-cherished  conceptions, 
and  supplanted  them  with  a  profound  respect 
for  the  power  of  the  terrestrial  agencies  of 
waste.  Broader,  and  truer,  and  fresher  views 
of  nature  art?  worth  the  trouble  of  a  long 
journey,  and  in  gaining  them  we  felt  our- 
selves abundantly  repaid  for  our  toil  under  a 
fierce  sun  among  the  uplands  of  Central 
France. 


VI. 

THE   OLD   GLACIERS   OF    NORWAY 
AND  SCOTLAND. 

In  the  course  of  the  detailed  investigations 
of  the  history  of  the  glacial  period  in  Britain, 
which,  during  the  past  six  or  seven  years, 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


have  been  carried  on  by  the  Geological  Sur- 
vey, the  desire  naturally  arose  to  compare  the 
phenomena  of  glaciation  now  familiar  in  this 
country  with  those  of  some  other  region 
where  they  might  be  linked  with  the  action 
of  still  existing  glaciers.  No  other  part  of 
Europe  offered  so  many  facilities  for  such  a 
comparison  as  were  to  be  found  in  Scandi- 
navia. In  the  first  place,  the  rocks  of  the 
two  regions  were  known  to  present  many 
points  of  resemblance  in  structure  and  scen- 
ery. It  was  further  evident  from  the  pub- 
lished accounts  that  the  Norwegian  coast 
possessed  the  ice-worn  aspect  so  characteris- 
tic of  the  West  of  Scotland. 

The  objects  proposed  to  be  accomplished 
in  this  excursion  were — to  compare,  as  mi- 
nutely as  time  would  allow,  the  ice-marks  on 
the  rocks  of  Scotland  with  those  on  the  rocks 
of  Scandinavia ;  to  ascertain,  from  personal 
exploration,  how  far  the  glaciation  of  the 
Norwegian  coasts  and  fjords  could  be  traced 
to  the  action  of  land-ice  or  of  floating  bergs  ; 
to  trace,  if  possible,  the  connection  between 
the  ancient  ice-work  and  the  work  of  living 
glaciers;  and,  generally,  to  seek  for  any  facts 
that  might  help  to  throw  light  upon  the 
history  of  the  glacial  period  of  the  British 
Isles.  Having  only  a  few  weeks  at  our  dis- 
posal, we  were  far  from  aiming  at  origin  \\ 
discovery  in  Norwegian  geology.  The  main 
features  of  the  disposition  of  the  snow-fields 
and  glaciers  had  already  been  given  in  the 
masterly  sketch  by  Principal  Forbes — a  work 
which  was  of  inestimable  value  to  us.  More 
detailed  descriptions  of  parts  of  the  glaciation 
of  Norway  had  been  published  by  Scandi- 
navian geologists — Esmark,  Horbye,  Kjerulf, 
Sexe,  and  others.  Yet  I  was  not  without  the 
hope  that,  besides  adding  10  our  own  experi- 
ence, we  might  also  be  fortunate  enough  to 
find  in  the  Norwegian  fjords  materials  for 
making  still  more  clear  the  geological  history 
of  our  own  western  sea-lochs. 

The  close  resemblance  between  the  general 
outline  of  Scotland  and  that  of  Scandinavia  is 
too  well  known  to  need  more  than  a  passing 
allusion.  The  numerous  deep  and  intricate 
indentations,  the  endless  islands  and  sker- 
ries, the  mountainous  shores,  the  host  of 
short  independent  streams  on  the  western 
coast;  and  on  the  eastern  side,  the  broad, 
undulating  lowlands,  sending  their  collected 
drainage  into  large  rivers,  which  enter  the  sea 
along  a  comparatively  little  embayed  coast- 
line, are  familiar  features  on  the  maps  of  both 
countries.  This  general  outward  resemblance, 
which  at  once  arrests  the  attention  of  every 
traveler  in  Norway  to  whom  the  scenery  of 
the  Western  Highlands  is  familiar,  depends 
upon  a  close  similarity  in  the  geological  struc- 
ture of  the  rocks,  and  a  coincidence  in  the 
geological  history  of  the  surface  of  the  two 
regions.  Norway,  from  south  to  north,  is 
almost  wholly  made  up  of  crystalline  and 
schistose  rocks,  not  all  of  the  same  age,  yet 
possessing  a  general  similarity  of  character. 


In  like  manner,  the  West  of  Scotland,  from 
the  Mull  of  Cantyre  to  Cape  Wrath,  is  in 
great  measure  built  up  of  gneisses,  schists, 
slates,  quartzites,  granites,  and  other  rocks, 
quite  comparable  with  those  of  Norway. 

Besides  the  external  resemblance  due  to 
the  lithological  nature  of  the  rocks  beneath, 
there  is  a  still  further  likeness  dependent 
upon  similarity,  partly  of  geological  struc- 
ture, and  partly  of  denudation.  Most  of  the 
Scottish  sea-lochs  have  had  their  trend  deter- 
mined by  lines  of  strike  or  of  anticlinal  axis, 
and  the  same  result  seems  to  have  taken  place 
in  Norway.  But  the  lochs  and  the  glens  of  one 
country,  and  the  fjords  and  valleys  of  the 
other,  whether  or  not  their  site  and  direction 
have  been  determined  by  geological  structure, 
unquestionably  owe  their  excavation  to  the 
great  process  of  denudation  which  has 
brought  the  surface  of  the  land  to  its  present 
form.  In  short,  Norway  and  the  Scottish 
Highlands  seem  to  be  but  parts  of  one  long 
table-land  of  erosion  composed  of  palaeozoic 
(Chiefly  metamorphic)  rocks.  This  table-land 
must  be  of  venerable  antiquity;  for  it  seems 
to  have  been  in  existence,  at  least  in  part,  as 
far  back  as  the  Lower  Old  Red  Sandstone. 
Since  that  time  it  nas  been  sorely  defaced  by 
long  cycles  of  geological  revolution;  rains, 
rivers,  ice,  and  general  atmospheric  waste 
have  carved  out  of  it  tiie  present  valleys,  and 
to  all  this  surface  change  must  be  added  the 
results  of  dislocations,  as  well  as  unequal  up- 
heavals and  depressions  of  the  crust  of  the 
earth  beneath.  Nevertheless.it  still  survives  in 
extensive  fragments  in  Norway,  where  it  serves 
as  a  platform  for  the  great  snow-fields,  while 
it  can  even  yet  be  traced  along  the  undulat- 
ing summits  of  the  mountains  of  toe  Scottish 
Highlands.  One  of  its  latest  great  revolu- 
tions was  a  submergence  toward  the  west, 


which,  extending  from  the  coasts  of  Ireland 
to  the  north  of  Norway,  has  given  rise  to 
some  of  the  most  distinctive  features  of  that 
part  of  Europe.  No  one  can  attentively 
compare  the  maps  of  the  land  with  the  charts 
of  the  sea-bottom  in  the  region  between  the 
headlands  of  Connaught  and  the  North  Cape, 
without  being  convinced  that  the  endless 
ramifying  sea-lochs  and  fjords,  kyles  and 
sounds,  were  once  land-valleys.  Each  loch 
and  fjord  is  the  submerged  part  of  a  valley, 
of  which  we  still  see  the  uppor  portion  above 
water,  and  the  sunken  rocks  and  skerries,  is- 
lets and  islands,  are  all  so  many  relics  of  fhe 
uneven  surface  of  the  old  land  before  its 
submergence.  The  indented  form  of  the 
coastline  of  the  west  of  Scotland  and  of 
Norway  is  not  evidence  of  the  unequal  en- 
croachment of  the  sea,  as  is  often,  perhaps 
generally,  supposed,  but  is  due  to  a  general 
submergence  of  the  west  side  of  the  two 
countries,  whereby  the  tides  have  been  sent 
far  inland,  filling  from  side  to  side  ancient 
valleys  and  lakes.  Subsequent  re  elevations, 
or  rather,  stationary  intervals  during  a  long 
period  of  elevation,  are  marked  along  both 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


35 


the  Norwegian  and  Scottish  shores  by  suc- 
cessive terraces  or  raised  beaches. 

But  to  one  who  has  sailed  or  boated  among 
the  sea-lochs  of  Scotland,  no  feature  of  the 
Norwegian  coast  is  at  once  so  striking  and  so 
familiar  as  the  universal  smoothing  and 
rounding  of  the  rocks,  which  is  now  recog- 
nized as  the  result  of  the  abrading  power  of 
ice.  Every  skerry  and  islet  among  the  count- 
less thousands  of  that  coast-line  is  either  one 
smooth  boss  of  rock,  like  the  back  of  a  whale 
or  dolphin,  or  a  succession  of  such  bosses 
rising  and  sinking  in  gentle  undulations  into 
each  other.  Such,  too,  is  the  nature  of  the 
rocky  shore  of  every  fjord  ;  the  smoothed 
surface  growing  gradually  rougher,  indeed, 
as  we  trace  it  upward  from  th  sea-level,  yet 
continuing  to  show  itself,  until  at  a  height  of 
many  hundred  feet  it  merges  into  the  broken, 
scarped  outlines  of  the  higher  mountain  sides 
and  summits.  In  short,  as  is  now  well  known, 
the  whole  of  the  surface  of  the  country,  for 
many  hundred  feet  above  the  sea,  has  been 
ground  down  and  smoothed  by  ice. 

We  sailed  along  the  coast  of  Norway,  be- 
tween Bergen  and  Hammerfest,  by  the 
usual  steamboat  route,  touching  at  many  sta- 
tions by  the  way,  threading  the  narrow  kyles 
and  sounds  that  lie  among  the  innumerable 
islands,  and  now  and  then  running  inland 
up  some  fjord  far  into  the  heart  of  the 
country.  We  halted  here  and  there  to  spend 
a.  few  days  at  a  time  in  exploring  some  of  the 
fjords  and  glaciers.  What  can  be  s«"en  from 
the  steamer  on  the  coasting  voyage  is  now 
familiar  from  the  numerous  descriptions 
which  have  been  given  of  it  in  recent  years. 
I  shall  therefore  content  myself  with  offering 
an  account  of  two  excursions  to  points  at 
some  distance  from  the  ordinary  route. 

A  little  to  the  north  of  the  Arctic  Circle 
lies  the  island  of  Melo,  one  of  many  which 
are  here  crowded  together  along  the  coast. 
It  is  only  noticeable,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  sta- 
tion at  which  the  steamers  call,  and  from 
which  the  great  snow-fields  of  the  Svartisen 
or  Fondalen  may  be  most  easily  visited. 
Here,  as  along  all  the  Norwegian  coasts,  we 
find  ourselves  among  bare  bossy  hummocks  of 
rock  thoroughly  ice-worn.  From  the  higher 
eminences  the  eye  sweeps  over  the  count- 
less islets  and  skerries,  and  far  across  the 
Vest  Fjord  to  the  serrated  peaks  of  the  Lo- 
fodden  Islands,  which  in  the  distance  seem 
deep  sunk  in  the  northwestern  sea.  The 
whole  of  the  lower  grounds  is  one  labyrinth 
of  roches  moutonnefo,  raising  their  smooth 
backs  like  so  many  porpoises  out  of  the  sea, 
as  well  as  peering  out  of  a  flat  expanse  of 
green  pasture  and  dark  bog  which  here 
covers  an  old  sea-bottom.  The  striations 
and  groovings  are  still  fresh  on  many  of  the 
smoothed  surfaces  of  gneiss,  and  invariably 
run  straight  out  to  sea  in  the  line  of  the  long 
valley  up  which  the  sea  winds  inland  among 
the  snowy  mountains.  It  cannot  be  doubted 
that  a  vast  mass  of  ice  has  come  seaward 


down  this  valley,  and  that  all  these  ice-worn 
hummocks  of  rock  were  ground  down  by  it. 
The  wide  opening  at  Melo  is  formed  by  the 
converging  mouths  of  a  number  of  narrow 
fjords.  Of  these  the  most  northerly  is  the 
Glommens  Fjord,  which  is  bounded  along 
its  northerly  side  by  a  range  of  high  moun- 
tains, with  a  serrated  crest  and  abundant 
snowy  clefts  and  corries.  Southward  lies  a 
belt  of  lower  ice-worn  hills,  cut  lengthwise  by 
the  Bjerangs  Fjord,  and  bounded  on  the  south 
by  the  Holands  Fjord,  on  the  south  of  which 
rises  another  range  of  scarped  snow-covered 
mountains. 

From  the  gaard  of  Melo  we  boated  east- 
ward among  various  small  islets  and  chan- 
nels, passing  soon  into  the  Holands  Fjord, 
up  which  we  continued  until  we  rested  un- 
derneath the  great  snow-field  and  glaciers  of 
Svartisen.  In  this  excursion  we  started 
from  the  coast,  amid  islands,  all  molded, 
like  those  of  the  West  of  Scotland,  by  the 
ice  of  the  glacial  period,  and  in  the  evening 
we  reached  rocks  on  which  the  present  gla- 
ciers are  inscribing  precisely  the  same  mark- 
ings. One  of  the  first  features  whic  i  arrested 
attention  was  the  contrast  between  the 
smoothed,  ice-worn  surface  of  the  lower 
grounds  and  the  craggy,  scarped  outlines  of 
the  mountain  crests.  This  was  especially 
marked  along  the  northern  side  of  the  Glom- 
mens Fjord,  where  the  ice  worn  rocks 
form  a  distinct  zone  along  the  side  of  the 
rough,  craggy  hills.  To  the  north  of  Melo- 
vaer  this  ice-worn  belt  was  estimated  to  rise 
about  200  feet  above  the  sea.  Its  smoothed 
rocks  are  abundantly  rent  along  lines  of  joint 
and  other  divisional  planes;  their  ice- worn 
aspect  must  thus  be  imperceptibly  fading 
away.  The  rough  rocks  above  them  some- 
times show  traces  of  smoothed  surfaces,  as 
if  they  had  suffered  from  an  older  glaciation, 
of  which  the  records  are  now  all  but  obliter- 
ated. The  line  of  division  between  the  belt 
of  rocks  which  have  been  smoothed  by  ice, 
and  tho  e  which  have  been  roughened  and 
scarped  by  atmospheric  waste,  slopes  gently 
upward  in  the  direction  of  the  central  snow- 
fields  of  the  interior.  While  at  Melovaer  it 
seemed  to  rise  only  about  200  feet  above  the 
sea;  at  Fondalen,  twenty-five  or  thirty  miles 
inland,  it  mounts  to  a  height  of  fully  1,500 
feet.  A  tract  of  bare  hills,  lying  between 
the  Glommens  and  the  Holands  Fjords,  and 
rising  eastward  into  the  snow-covered  table- 
land, is  well  smoothed  in  the  direction  of 
these  fjords.  In  short,  the  whole  of  the 
broad  depression  between  the  two  fjords  has 
been  filled  with  ice,  moving  steadily  down- 
wards from  the  snow-fields  to  the  sea. 

It  was  interesting  to  watch,  on  every  little 
islet  and  promontory  under  which  we 
passed,  even  the  same  details  of  glaciations 
so  familiar  along  the  margin  of  our  Scottish 
fjords.  The  rocks,  smoothed  into  flowing 
lines,  slip  sharply  and  cleanly  into  the  water, 
and  are  well  grooved  and  striated.  More- 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


over,  it  was  easy  to  see  that  the  ice  which  had 
graven  these  lines  must  have  moved  down 
t  e  fjord,  for  the  lee  or  rougher  side  of  the 
crags  looks  seaward.  It  was  likewise  clear 
that  the  scorings  were  not  the  work  of  drift- 
ing bergs  or  coast  ice,  for  they  could  often  be 
seen  mounting  over  projecting  parts  of  the 
banks,  yet  retaining  all  the  while  their  sharp- 
ness, parallelism,  and  persistent  trend.  An- 
other point  of  similarity  to  West  Highland 
Scenery  was  found  in  the  strange  scarcity  or 
absence  of  drift  an:i  boulders.  1  do  not  mean 
to  assert  that  these  are  not  to  be  met  with  at 
all,  but  they  do  not  exist  so  prominently  as 
to  catch  the  eye  even  of  one  who  is  on  the 
outlook  for  them.  The  rock  everywhere 
raises  its  bare  knolls  to  the  sun  as  it  does  on 
the  coasts  of  Inverness  and  Argyll.  To  com- 
plete the  resemblanc;,  the  Norwegian  fjord 
has  its  sides  marked  by  the  line  of  a  former 
sea-margin,  about  250  feet  above  the  present. 
This  terrace  winds  out  and  in  among  all  the 
ramifications  and  curves  of  the  fjord,  remain- 
ing fresher  and  more  distinct  than  the  raised 
beaches  of  the  West  Highlands  usually  are, 
and  even  rivaling  one  of  the  parallel  roads  of 
Lochaber. 

We  rested  for  a  week  at  the  hamlet  of 
Fondalen,  on  the  south  side  of  the  Holands 
Fjord.  It  stands  at  the  mouth  of  a  deep 
narrow  valley  on  the  line  of  the  terrace, 
which  here  runs  along  the  crest  of  a  steep 
bank  of  rubbish  covered  with  enormous 
blocks  (>f  rock  —  an  old  moraine  thrown 
across  the  end  of  the  valley.  There  seems 
to  have  been  at  one  time  a  lake  behind  this 
bank,  formed  by  the  ponding  back  of  the 
drainage  of  the  valley,  and  gradually  emptied 
as  the  outflow-stream  deepened  its  channel 
through  the  moraine.  At  the  head  of  the 
valley  a  small  glacier  descends  from  the  snow- 
field  of  Svartisen.  There  could  be  no  better 
locality  for  studying  the  gradual  diminution 
of  the  glaciers,  and  for  learning  that  it  was 
land-ice  that  filled  the  Norwegian  fjords, 
overrode  the  lower  hills,  and  went  out  boldly 
into  the  Atlantic  and  Arctic  Sea.  The  Ho- 
lands Fjord  runs,  as  I  have  said,  approxi- 
mately east  and  west,  and  this  short  narrow 
valley  descends  from  the  south.  The  fjord 
was  formerly  filled  with  ice,  and  is  therefore 
polished  and  striated  along  the  line  of  its 
main  trend.  The  valley  of  Fondalen  was 
likewise  filled  with  ice,  moving  down  to  join 
the  mass  in  the  fjord;  and  its  rocks,  too,  are 
striated  in  the  length  of  the  valley,  or  from 
south  to  north.  The  moraine  of  Fondalen 
is  a  proof  that  a  glacier  once  descended  to 
the  Holands  Fjord  at  that  point.  Further 
evidence  is  found  in  the  fact,  that  the  sides 
of  the  valley  are  ground  and  striated  for 
seven  hundred  feet  and  more  above  its  bot- 
tom. Moreover,  these  polished  and  scored 
locks  can  be  traced  up  to  and  underneath  the 
glacier.  I  crept  tor  some  yards  under  the 
ice,  and  found  the  floor  of  gneiss  on  which 
it  rested  smoothly  polished  and  covered  with 


scorings  of   all   sizts,    exactly   the   same   in 

every  respect  as  those  high  on  the  sides  of 

!  the  valley,  in  the  fjord  below,  and  away  on 

I  the  outer   islands   and  skerries.     Over   this 

polished   surface   trickled  the  water  of  the 

melted   ice,    washing   out    sand    and    small 

stones  -from-  under  the  glacier. 

We  climbed  the  steep  eastern  side  of  the 
valley  above  the  foot  of  the  glacier,  and 
found  the  hummocks  of  gneiss  wonderfully 
glaciated  up  to  a  height  of  fully  700  feet. 
The  gnarled  crystalline  rock  has  been  ground 
away  smoothly  and  sharply,  so  as  to  show  its 
twisted  foliation  as  well  as  the  patterns  of  a 
marble  are  displayed  on  a  polished  chimney- 
piece.  Even  vertical  or  overhanging  faces  of 
rock  are  equally  smoothed  and  striated. 
Many  of  the  roches  moutonnees  are  loaded 
with  perched  blocks  of  all  sizes,  up  to  masses 
thirty  or  forty  feet  long.  Above  the  limit  to 
which  we  traced  the  work  of  the  ice  the 
rocks  begin  to  wear  a  more  rugged  surface, 
until  along  the  summit  of  the  ridges  they  rise 
into  serrated  crests  and  pinnacles.  This 
rougher  outline  is  of  course  the  result  of 
atmospheric  waste,  guided  by  the  geological 
structure  and  chemical  composition  of  the 
rocks. 

The  glacier  descends  from  the  snow-field, 
which  we  guessed  to  have  there  an  elevation 
of  about  3,500  feet,  to  a  point  in  the  valley 
about  400  feet  above  the  sea.  The  distance 
from  the  snow  field  to  the  foot  of  the  glacier 
looks  not  much  more  than  one  English  mile 
— at  least  it  is  but  short  compared  with  the 
rapidity  of  descent.  Hence  the  glacier  is 
iteep,  and  in  some  places  much  crevassed. 
Issuing  from  the  upper  snow  in  a  steep,  bro- 
ken, and  jagged  slope  of  blue  ice,  it  descends 
by  a  series  of  steps,  till,  getting  compacted 
again  in  the  valley  below,  it  passes  into  a 
solid,  firm  glacier,  with  a  tolerably  smooth 
surface,  forming  a  declivity  of  12°  or  15°. 
At  a  point  about  half  a  mile  or  less  from  the 
foot  of  the  glacier  the  valley  suddenly  con- 
tracts, and  the  glacier,  much  narrowed  and 
compressed,  tumbles  over  a  second  steep  de- 
clivity in  a  mass  of  broken  ice.  The  cre- 
vasses speedily  unite,  and  after  another 
descent  of  300  or  400  yards  at  an  angle  of 
25°,  the  glacier  comes  to  an  end.  At  the 
point  where  the  strangulation  takes  place  the 
glacier  lies  in  a  kind  of  basin,  of  which  the 
ower  lip  presents  proofs  of  the  most  intense 
erosion.  On  the  western  bank,  in  particular, 
a  mass  of  the  mountain  side  whicn  projects 
"nto  the  ice  has  been  ground  away,  and 
shows  plainly  enough  by  its  form  and  striae, 
that  the  glacier,  ascending  from  the  basin, 
lias  climbed  up  and  over  this  barrier,  so  as  to 
tumble  down  its  northern  or  seaward  side. 

The  course  of  this  little  glacier  is  now  too 
short  to  admit  of  the  formation  of  moraines. 
Yet  there  are  large  heaps  of  rubbish  and 
enormous  messes  of  rock  scattered  over  the 
valley  below;  and  the  moraine  at  Fondalen  is 
a  further  proof  that,  when  the  ice  formerly 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


37 


filled  the  valley,  its  surface  received  abund- 
ant detritus  from  the  mountain  slopes  on 
either  side 

Opposite  Fondalen,  the  Holands  Fjord, 
passing  through  a  deep  and  narrow  channel 
on  its  northern  bank,  trends  in  an  east- 
northeasterly  direction;  bu.  just  befoie 
taking  this  course  it  sends  eastward  a  bay 
which  terminates  at  the  mouth  of  a  valley 
about  a  mile  above  the  hamlet.  This  valley 
is  considerably  larger  than  that  just  described, 
and  it  is  occupied  by  a  much  longer  and 
larger  glacier.  To  one  who  looks  up  the  valley 
from  the  opposite  side  of  the  fjord,  it  seems 
as  if  the  ample  glacier  which  fills  up  the  bot- 
tom sweeps  down  from  the  snow-field  in  a 
rapid  descent  to  the  very  edge  of  the  sea. 
On  a  visit  to  the  locality,  however,  it  is  found 
that  between  the  foot  of  the  glacier  and  the 
sea-margin  there  lies  a  plain  of  shingle  and 
alluvium,  partly  covered  with  a  brushwood  of 
birch,  and  partly  with  a  scanty  pasturage. 
Near  the  ice  the  ground  rises  into  ridges  and 
hummocks,  which  increase  in  size  toward 
the  glacier.  These  are  true  moraine  mounds, 
rising  often  sixty  or  seventy  feet  above 
their  base,  consisting  of  earth  and  stones, 
and  strewn  with  large  blocks  of  gneiss,  por- 
phyry, limestone,  and  other  crystalline  rocks. 
About  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  margin  of 
the  fjord,  along  the  eastern  half  ot  the 
breadth  of  the  valley,  these  mounds  come 
in  contact  witrf  the  foot  of  the  glacier, 
which  is  there  pushed  in  a  long  tongue 


and  angular  rubbish.  Here,  as  at  every  gla- 
cier we  visited,  the  glaciation  of  the  rocks, 
down  to  the  minutest  detail,  was  exactly  sim- 
ilar to  that  of  the  coast  and  outer  islets,  as 
well  as  to  that  of  the  Scottish  glens  and  sea- 
lochs. 

But  the  feature  which  most  interested  us 
was  the  relation  of  this  large  glacier  of  Fon- 
dalen to  the  marine  deposits  of  the  locality. 
The  high  terrace  so  marked  along  the  sides 
of  the  Holands  Fjord  enters  this  valley,  and 
extends  on  the  mountain  sides,  as  far  as,  at 
least,  the  foot  of  the  glacier.  Hence  the 
gravelly  plain  and  the  moraine  mounds  that 
separate  the  glacier  from  the  fjord  are  over- 
looked on  either  side  by  a  raised  sea-beach. 
In  examining  attentively  the  nature  of  the 
material  of  whi.h  the  mounds  nearest  the  gla- 
cier were  composed,  we  were  struck  with  the 
difference  between  it  and  the  loose,  coarse 
character  of  the  ordinary  moraine  rubbish, 
and  its  resemblance  to  the  upper  boulder- 
clay  of  Scotland.  The  glacier  is  pushing 
great  noses  of  ice  into  and  over  these  mounds, 
so  that  freshly-exposed  sections  are  abundant. 
The  deposit  is  a  loose  sandy  clay  or  earth 
full  of  stones,  among  which  the  percentage 
of  striated  specimens  is  not  large.  The  larger 
blocks  of  gneiss  and  schist  appeared  to  us 
not  to  occur  in  this  clay,  but  to  be  tumbled 
down  upon  it  from  the  surface  of  the  glacier. 
We  had  hardly  begun  to  look  over  a  surface 
of  the  clay  ere  we  found  fragments  of  shells, 
and  in  the  course  of  a  few  minutes  we  picked 


down  the  valky.  The  ice  overrides  the  up  several  handfuls,  chierly  of  broken  pieces 
moraine  heaps,  ploughing  them  and  push-  j  of  Cyptina  Islandica,  but  including  also  single 
ing  them  over.  On  the  west  side  of  this  pro-  valves  of  Astarte  compressa,  etc.  We  even 
longation  of  the  glacier  the  ice  is  separated  j  took  out  two  or  three  fragments  which  were 
from  the  moraine  mound  by  a  small  lake,  of  j  sticking  in  the  ice  of  the  glacier.  These 
which  the  surplus  waters  find  their  way  sea-  j  shells  were  not  peculiar  to  one  spot,  but  oc- 
ward  by  cutting  through  the  moraine.  Like  \  curred  more  or  less  abundantly  across  the 


many  lakes  still  existing  in  Britain,  this  sheet 
of  water  is  formed  by  the  dam  of  rubbish 
thrown  down  by  the  glacier  across  the  valley. 
It  is  full  cf  fragments  of  ice,  which  break  off 
from  the  parent  mass,  and  float  across  to  the 
north  or  lower  side,  where  they  strand  on  the 
moraine  heaps,  and  gradually  melt  away. 
The  smaller  pieces,  however,  often  find  their 
way  into  the  stream  by  which  the  lake  dis- 
charges itself,  and  are  then  carried  downiuto 
the  fjord.  From  the  mean  of  several  obser- 


the  surface  of  this  lake  to  be  about  twenty- 
five  feet  above  the  level  of  high  water  in  the 
fjorrf.  We  had  no  means  of  measuring  its 
depth,  yet,  from  the  slope  of  the  glacier,  it 


valley. 

From  the  nature  of*  the  material  of  which 
these  mounds  consist,  and  from  the  occur- 
rence of  marine  shel's,  it  was  evident  that  we 
were  looking  not  merely  upon  ordinary  mo- 
raine heaps — the  detritus  carried  down  on  the 
surface  of  the  ice  and  discharged  upon  the 
bottom  of  the  valley.  The  glacier  was  en- 
gaged in  ploughing  up  the  marine  sediment 
which  had  been  formerly  deposited  upon  the 
submerged  floor  of  the  valley,  and  on  the 


ations  taken  with  the  aneroid,  I  estimated    heaps   of   earth   and   clay  now  torn  up  were 

'  thrown  the  gravel  and  blocks  brought  down 


by  the  present  glacier.  In  short,  we  saw 
here  actually  at  work  a  process  of  excavation, 
by  which  it  had  been  conjectured  that  the 


may   be  inferred  that  the  bottom  of  the  ice  j  marine  drift  was  removed  from  certain  valleys 
is  probably  lower  than  the  level  of  the  sea.       |  in  the  British  Isles. 


Proofs  that  the  glacier  was  once  much 
larger  than  it  is  now  may  be  well  seen  on  the 
west  side  of  the  valley,  a  little  above  the  lake. 
The  shelving  slopes  of  the  mountain  for 


We  made  two  attempts,  both  unsuccessful, 
to  climb  to  the  vast  table-land  of  snow 
from  which  these  glaciers  are  fed.  But  we 
succeeded  in  reaching  a  point  from  which  a 


several  hundred  feet  upward  have  been  shorn  I  good  view  of  the  seemingly  boundless  undu- 


smooth,  grooved,  and  striated,  and  every 
polished  hummock  of  rock  is  loaded  with 
huge  fragments  of  stone  and  heaps  of  earth 


lating  plain  of  smooth  snow  could  be  ob- 
tained.  We  ascended  the  ridge  that  sepa- 
rates  the  two  glacier  valleys  just  described. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


After  leaving  the  raised  beach  of  Fondalen, 
with  its  massive  erratics,  we  climbed  a  steep 
slope,  clothed  with  a  thick  brushwood  of 
birch,  mountain-ash,  and  dwarf-willow,  and 
luxuriant  masses  of  ferns,  bilberries,  cloud- 
berries, juniper,  rock-geranium,  lychnis,  etc. 
The  beech  trees  are  often  a  foot  or  a  foot  and 
a  half  in  diameter  at  the  base,  and  are  the 
building  material  used  at  the  hamlet  of 
Fondalen  below.  These  trees,  at  the  height 
of  1,320  above  the  sea,  still  often  measure  a 
foot  across  near  the  root,  and  fifteen  or 
twenty  feet  in  height.  At  this  elevation,  and 
even  considerably  lower,  there  were  large 
sheets  of  snow  on  the  I2th  of  July,  and  these 
increased  in  number  and  depth  as  we  as- 
cended. The  birch  trees  grow  smaller  and 
more  stunted  as  they  struggle  up  the  bare 
mountain  ridge,  until  they  become  mere 
bushes.  The  willows,  in  like  manner, 
dwindle  down  till  they  look  like  straggling 
tufts  of  heather,  though  still  bearing  their 
full  formed  catkins.  At  a  height  of  1,690 
feet,  these  stunted  bushes  at  last  give  place 
to  a  scrub  of  bilberry,  mosses,  and  lycopods. 
The  mountain  consists  of  gneiss,  sometimes 
massive  and  jointed  sometimes  fissile 
and  flaggy,  with  a  striki  toward  W.,  15° 
S.  1  he  extent  to  which  the  higher  rocky 
scarps  have  suffered  from  the  disintegrating 
effects  of  the  weather  arrests  attention  ;  for 
the  gneiss  is  split  up  along  its  joints  into 
large  blocks,  which  lie  piled  upon  each  other 
in  heaps  of  angular  ruin.  We  noticed  one  or 
two  masses,  differing  in  lithological  character 
from  the  rocks  around,  and  possibly  ice-borne 
from  some  of  the  neighboring  eminences. 
On  reaching  a  point  2,700  feet  above  the 
fjord,  our  farther  passage  was  arrested  by  a 
narrow,  shattered,  knife-edge  of  gneiss, 
along  which,  without  suitable  climbing  gear, 
it  was  impossible  to  advance.  But  from  this 
elevated  point  we  could  judge  of  the  general 
aspect  of  the  great  snowy  table-land  of  the 
Svartisen,  which  was  sloping  toward  us, 
while  the  two  glaciers  were  spread  out  in 
plan  beneath. 

The  branch  of  the  Holands  Fjord  which, 
opposite  to  the  hamlet  of  Fondalen,  strikes 
off  to  the  northeast  for  seven  or  eight  miles, 
is  bordered  on  the  south  side,  and  closed  in 
at  its  farther  end  by  a  range  of  steep,  almost 
precipitous,  walls  of  rock,  the  summits  of 
which  are  on  a  level  with,  and  indeed  form 
part  of  the  great  table-land.  Here,  as  in  so 
many  other  parts  of  Norway,  we  are  reminded 
that  the  fjords  are,  after  all,  mere  long  sinu- 
ous trenches,  dug  deeply  out  of  the  edge  of  a 
series  of  elevated  plateaux.  And,  looking  up  to 
the  crest  of  these  dark  precipices,  we  see  the 
edge  of  the  high  snow-plain  peering  over,  and 
sending  a  stream  of  blue  glacier  ice  down 
every  available  hollow.  We  counted  seven 
of  these  tiny  glaciers  exuding  from  under 
the  snow,  and  creeping  downward  under  tne 
sombre  cliffs  of  gneiss.  Not  one  of  them 
comes  much  below  the  snow  line,  and  none, 


of  course,  reaches  the  sea.  The  largest  of 
them  is  near  the  end  of  the  fjord,  and  ap- 
pears as  a  broken,  crevassed  mass  of  ice, 
molded  as  it  were  over  the  steep  hillside, 
and,  when  seen  from  below,  seeming  about 
to  slip  off  and  plunsje  into  the  fjord.  Frag- 
ments of  it  are  continually  breaking  away, 
and  rolling,  with  the  noise  of  thunder  and 
clouds  of  icy  dust,  down  the  shelving  sides 
of  the  mountains.  These  glaciers  are,  for 
the  most  part,  continuous  with  the  snow- 
field,  of  which  they  are  the  icy  drainage. 
One  or  two,  however,  lie  in  corries,  quite  de- 
tached from  the  main  snow-field,  though 
connected  with  it  by  continuous  snow  in 
winter. 

The  bright  sunny  Arctic  nights  led  us  not 
unfrequently  and  almost  unconsciously  to 
prolong  the  work  of  one  day  into  the  next. 
Once,  at  midnight,  while  sketching  at  Fon- 
dalen, I  was  amused  by  the  loud  and  persist- 
ent call  of  a  cuckoo  perched  on  one  of  the 
neighboring  trees.  The  native  non-migratory 
birds  are  evidently  used  to  the  ways  of  the 
sun  in  the  Arctic  summer,  and,  like  the 
human  population,  know  when  to  go  to  rest. 
But  the  tourist  cuckoo  was  evidently  quite 
unaware  of  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  and  con- 
tinued his  "two-fold  shout "  as  lustily  as  if  it 
had  been  midday. 

We  left  this  delightful  fjord  not  without 
regret,  and  catching  again  the  coasting 
steamer  at  Melovaer,  proceeded  northward. 
Between  Melovaer  and  Bodo,  the  higher 
mountains  have  wonderfully  craggy  and 
spiry  outlines,  only  their  lower  parts  show- 
ing the  smoothed  contour  of  glaciation.  But 
wnere  the  cdast  hills  sink,  as  toward  a  fjord 
or  bay,  the  ice- molded  forms  can  be  traced 
to  a  greater  height.  To  the  north  of  Bodo, 
the  contrast  between  the  sharp  weather-worn 
peaks  above  and  the  flowing  ice-worn  hum- 
mocks and  hillsides  below  is  singularly  start- 
ling. Principal  Forbes,  who  gave  a  charac- 
teristically faithful  drawing  to  illustrate  this 
feature,  places  the  upper  limit  of  glaciation 
at  from  1,500  to  2,000  feet.  We  should  have 
estimated  it  to  be  considerably  lower. 
Through  narrow  kyles  and  intricate  sounds, 
reminding  one  at  every  turn  of  detached 
portions  of  West  Highland  or  Hebridean 
scenery,  the  steamer  slowly  wound  its  way, 
and  then  across  the  Vest  Fjord  to  the  Lofod- 
den  Islands.  The  weather  now  unfortunately 
proved  unfavorable  for  geological  observa- 
tion. In  sailing  through  the  Raft  Sund  we 
saw  what  looked  like  moraines  at  the  mouths 
of  some  of  the  valleys,  and  the  lines  of  mo- 
raine terraces  continued  as  marked  as  ever. 
Rocks  well  ice-worn  were  also  observed  at 
the  openings  of  some  of  the  valleys,  but  we 
were  rather  impressed  with  the  general  rug- 
gedness  and  absence  of  glaciation  among  the 
Lofoddens. 

To  the  north  of  Troms3  lies  the  island  of 
Ringvatso,  noticed  by  Mr.  R.  Chambers. 
The  moraine  which  he  describes  as  damming 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


np  the  circular  sheet  ot  water,  whence  the 
island  takes  its  name,  really  coincides  with 
the  line  of  the  higher  of  the  two  strongly- 
marked  terraces  or  sea-margins  of  this  part 
of  the  Norwegian  coast.  It  thus  illustrates 
the  history  of  the  moraine  and  terrace  below 
the  smaller  glacier  at  Fondaien.  It  was 
farther  interesting  to  mark  that  the  glacier  at 
Ringvatso,  partially  hidden  under  snow,  lies 
in  a  hollow  or  corry  surrounded  with  preci- 
pices, and  quite  cut  off  from  any  snow-field. 
The  accumulation  of  snow  in  the  corry  itself 
must  thus  be  sufficient  to  give  rise  to  the 
glacier.  In  looking  at  this  island,  I  was 
Forcibly  reminded  of  the  history  of  the  gla 


Norwegian  coast,  even  (as  in  the  Jokuls 
Fjord)  in  sheltered  places  where  wave  action 
cannot  be  supposed  ever  to  have  been  very 
strong.  As  the  date  of  these  rock-terraces 
probably  goes  back  into  the  glacial  period,  it 
occurred  to  me  that  they  may  have  been  due 
in  large  measure  to  the  effects  of  the  freez- 
ings and  thawings  along  the  old  "ice-foot," 
and  to  the  rasping  and  grating  of  coast  ice. 
Such,  too,  may  have  been  the  origin  of  the 
higher  horizontal  rock-terraces  of  Scotland. 

At  the  head  of  the  fjord  the  terrace-  dis- 
appear along  the  steep  bare  sides  of  the 
mountains.  A  moraine  mound  of  loose  rub- 
bish and  large  blocks  lies  on  the  west  side,  and 


ciers   of  Tweedsmuir    and    Loch    Skene    in  i  extends  a  little  way  into  the  fjord,  pointing 


Peebleshire  and  other  old  glacier  grounds  in 
Scotland,  where,  on  dimples  of  the  hill-tops, 
and  in  deep  cliff-encircled  recesses,  snow 


toward  a  similar  ridge  on  the  opposite  side, 
as  if  both  were  parts  of  a  curved  terminal 
moraine.  The  view  from  this  ridge  is  singu- 


enough  gathered  to  form  streams  of  ice,  |  larly  imposing.  The  sombre  precipitous 
which  caught  and  carried  on  their  surface  I  mountains  sweep  upward  from  the  edge  of 
piles  of  rubbish  and  huge  blocks  of  rock,  the  water,  seamed  everywhere  with  streaks 


A   large   snow-field   is  not  necessary  for  the 


and   sheets   of  snow.      Down   even   to  the 


production   of  a  glacier  that  may  form  com-    beach  these  snow-drifts  lie;  and  it  gives  a    . 


paratively  extensive  moraines. 

The  southwestern  side  of  the  Lyngen  Fjord 
is  formed  by  a  mass  of  high  ground,  which 
shoots  up  steeply  f.om  the  sea  to  a  height  of 
four  thousand  feet  or  more.  Every  hollow 
and  cliff  is  smothered  with  snow,  which 


vivid  impression  of  the  high  latitude  of  the 
place,  that  even  in  July  there  should  be  deep 
masses  of  snow  overhanging  tangle-covered 
rocks,  and  undermined  by  the  wash  of  the 
waves.  Over  the  crest  of  the  mountains, 
at  the  head  of  the  fjord,  we  see  the 


descends  in  straggling  streaks  and  patches    edge  of  the  great  snow-field  of  the  Jokuls 
almost  to  the  edge  of  the  water.     We  sailed    Fjeld,  and  stealing  down  from  underneath 


up 


the  fjord  for  some  miles,  and  had  a  full 


view  of  this  truly  magnificent  coast-line.  We 
counted  from  ten  to  twelve  small  glaciers 
nestling  in  separate  corries,  and  also  two  or 
three  on  the  northeastern  side.  There  was 
here  the  same  evidence  of  the  formation  of 
glaciers  in  small  independent  hollows  of  the 


mountains,   quite  detached,   at  least 
summer,  from  any  large  snow-field. 


the 


We  halted  at  the  island  of  Skjaervo  (lat. 


the  snow  comes   a  broken,    shattered  mass 
of  glacier    ice,    broadest    at    the    top,  and 


narrowing     downward 


its    point    dis- 


appears in  a  deep  cleft  or  ravine,  perhaps  a 
third  of  the  way  from  the  surface  of  the 
snow-field  to  the  sea.  The  eastern  part  of 
this  glacLr  seems  plastered,  as  it  were,  over 
the  forehead  of  the  mountain,  and  is  ever 
sending  off  fragments  down  the  dark  preci- 
pice below.  Indeed,  the  whole  glacier  is  in 


70°)  for  the  purpose  of  making  an  excursion  constant  commotion,  cracking  and  crashing 
across  the  Kvenangen  Fjord  and  up  the  |  and  discharging  masses  of  ice  and  snow, 
Jokuls  Fjord,  to  see  the  glacier  which  was  '•  which  pour  over  the  black  rocks  in  sheets  of 
said  to  reach  the  level  of  the  sea.  The  white  dust,  with  a  noise  like  the  unintermit- 
metamorphic  rocks  among  which  the  Jokuls  ted  thunder  of  a  battle.  These  ice-falls  are 
Fjord  lies  are  for  the  most  part  of  a  flaggy  :  in  large  measure  intercepted  at  the  point 
quartzose  character.  Sometimes,  especially  |  where  the  glacier  disappears  behind  the  side 
where  most  fissile,  they  are  violently  crum-  i  of  the  ravine.  They  seemed,  indeed,  to  col- 
pled.  Parts  of  them  pass  into  hornblende  lect  in  the  ravine,  and  to  slide  down  through 
rock  and  actinolite  schist.  Their  average  it  ;  for  at  its  lower  end  a  second  glacier  be- 
strike  s  on  an  east  and  west  line.  They  are  gins,  and  expands  with  the  expansion  of  the 
much  jointed,  and  yield  freely  to  the  action  hollow  in  which  it  lies,  till  it  reaches  the  edge 
of  the  weather.  Hence,  a  rough  and  angular  of  the  fjord,  where  it  may  be  a  quarter  of  a 
surface  hag  very  generally  replaced  the  ice-  mile  broad.  This  lower  glacier  appeared  to 
molded  outlines,  though  these  still  here  me  not  connected  with  the  snow-field,  but  a 
and  there  remain.  Numerous  ancient  marine  true  glacier  remanitf,  deriving  its  materials 
terraces,  especially  the  same  two  prominent  entirely  from  the  avalanches  of  snow  and  ice 
ones  already  mentioned,  may  be  traced  along  that  pour  down  upon  its  surface  from  the 
the  sides  of  the  Jokuls  Fjord.  The  lower  of  precipices  overhead.  It  has  a  white,  or  dull 
these  runs  at  a  level  of  about  sixty  feet,  the  greenish  white  color,  varied  with  well-marked 
higher  at  about  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  dirt- bands.  The  slope  of  its  surface  was 
feet  (aneroid  measurement)  above  high-water  judged  to  be  fully  20°  or  25°.  A  few  longi- 
mark.  The  upper  is  especially  marked,  often  |  tudinal  crevasses  make  their  appearance 
running  as  a  shelf  cut  out  of  the  rock.  This  j  along  the  middle  of  the  glacier,  and  a  little 
feature  was  noticed  along  many  parts  of  the  <  farther  down  the  transverse  crevasses  increase 


40 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


in  number  and  size,  until  at  its  foot  the  gla- 
cier, broken  by  large  semicircular  rents,  be- 
comes a  tumbled  mass  of  ruin.  These  cliffs 
of  granular  loose-textured  ice  were  observed 
in  some  places  to  overhang  the  waves.  But 
the  dark  rock  was  likewise  seen  peering  out 
along  the  water's  edge,  underneath  the  ice, 
which  does  not  push  its  way  out  to  sea  in  a 
mass,  but  ends  abruptly  where  it  meets  the 
water.  From  these  icy  walls  small  fragments 
and  large  slices  break  off,  and  fall  either  on 
the  margin  of  rock  or  into  the  fjord,  which  is 
thus  covered  with  hundreds  of  miniature  ice- 
bergs, slowly  drifted  downward  against  wind 
and  tide,  by  the  surface  current  of  fresh 
water.  This  process  is  called  "calving "  by 
the  natives,  and  so  great  is  the  commotion 
sometimes  produced  that,  according  to  the  in- 
formation collected  by  Von  Buch,  the  Lapp 
huts  along  the  margin  of  the  fjord  are  some- 
times inundated  by  the  waves  propagated 
outward  from  the  falling  masses.  The 
floating  fragments  of  ice  look  like  little  models 
of  Arctic  bergs,  with  forms  often  singularly 
fantastic.  They  may  be  seen  shifting  their 
position,  and  even  capsizing,  as  their  sub- 
merged parts  melt  away  ;  some  of  them  carry 
stones  and  earth  on  their  surface,  while 
many,  aground  along  the  margin  of  the  fjord, 
rise  and  fall  with  the  tide  or  with  the  ripple 
of  the  waves.  We  passed  two  or  three  which 
were  from  8  to  10  feet  long.and  rose  from  3  to 
4  feet  out  of  the  fjord.  Our  boat  grated  against 
several  which  seemed  only  a  foot  or  two  in 
size,  yet  the  shock  of  the  collision  showed  how 
much  larger  was  the  portion  concealed  under 
water. 

To  the  east  of  the  upper  glacier  the  snow- 
field  sends  another  icy  stream  down  the 
face  of  the  shelving  precipices  which  de- 
scend into  a  higher  valley.  We  could  hear 
the  roar  of  the  avalanches  even  when 
the  glacier  itself  was  hidden  behind 
the  intervening  mountain-spur.  From  the 
rocky  declivities  of  the  Jokuls  Fjord  also 
stones  were  heard  and  seen  bounding  from 
point  to  point  in  their  descent  toward  the 
long  heaps  of  debris  at  the  bottom.  In  short, 
in  this  lonelv,  uninhabited  spot,  the  activity 
and  ceaselessness  of  the  wasting  powers  of 
nature  come  before  the  traveler  with  a  mem 
orable  impressiveness.  The  wide  snow-field 
that  seems  to  lie  so  sluggish  and  still  among 
the  distant  mists,  is  yet  seen  to  be  in  slow 
but  constant  motion,  pushing  its  ice-streams 
toward  the  valleys,  and  grinding  down  the 
hard  rocks  over  which  it  moves.  Frosts,  rain, 
and  springs  have  scarped  the  shoulders  of 
every  mountain,  and  poured  long  trains  of 
rubbish  down  its  sides.  And  if  this  can  be 
now  done  under  the  present  climate  of  Nor- 
way.how  much  more  powerful  must  the  abra- 
sion have  been  when  the  ice,  instead  of  be- 
ing arrested  on  the  brow  of  the  mountain, 
filled  up  the  fjord,  and  pushed  its  way  into 
the  Arctic  Sea  ! 

From  the  open   mouth  of  the   Kvenangs 


Fjord,  in  the  passage  between  Skjaervo  and 
the  Jokul,  the  outline  of  the  neighboring  land 
is  well  seen.  The  steep,  serrated  ridge  of 
the  Kvenangs  Tinderne  shows  iis  tiny  glaciers 
nestling  in  corries  both  on  its  northern  and 
southern  slopes.  The  sides  of  the  Kvenangs 
Fjord  are  ice-molded  and  striated  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  inlet,  and  the  islands  are  only 
large  rockes  moutonn^es.  In  looking  back  at 
the  mountainous  track  of  the  Jokuls  Fjeld, 
we  see  that  it  is  another  snowy  table-land  jut- 
ting out  as  a  promontory  into  the  Arctic  Sea, 
deeply  trenched  with  long,  narrow  fjords,  and 
pushing  glaciers  down  every  glen  and  hollow 
that  descends  from  the  plateau  of  snow.  I 
sketched  these  scenes  at  midnight,  when  the 
sun,  after  gathering  round  him  the  crimson 
and  orange  glories  of  his  setting,  lingers 
along  the  northern  horizon,  and  then  spreads 
over  the  sky  the  tender  hues  of  sunrise— a 
blending  of  sunset  and  dawn  which  is  one  of 
the  most  memorable  experiences  of  travel  in 
the  north. 

We  visited  the  northwestern  and  northern 
sides  of  this  snow-field,  boating  up  the  Bergs 
Fjord,  to  the  hamlet  of  that  name,  and  after 
ascending  to  its  glaciers,  continuing  our  ex- 
cursion by  boat  into  the  Nus  Fjord.  In  as- 
cending the  South  Bergs  Fjord,  we  found  the 
gneissic  and  schistose  rocks  polished  and 
striated  from  east  to  west,  which  is  the  direc- 
tion of  the  inlet,  and  in  turning  into  the 
North  Bergs  Fjord,  which  runs  nearly  at  a 
right  angle  to  the  other,  the  striae  were  seen 
to  turn  out  of  the  Lang  Fjord  and  bend 
northward  through  the  northern  limb 
of  the  Bergs  Fjord.  At  the  hamlet  of 
Bergsfjord  these  ice  moldings  are  espe- 
cially well  shown,  and  there,  as  well  as  along 
many  parts  of  the  fjord,  occur  lines  of  rock- 
terrace,  often  strewed  with  quantities  of  an- 
gular blocks.  Two  of  the  most  marked  of 
these  horizontal  bars  have  an  elevation  of 
about  50  and  150  feet  respectively.  Be- 
hind the  hamlet  the  ground  slopes  up  to  a 
point  about  250  feet  above  the  sea,  beyond 
which  lies  the  mouth  of  a  valley  that  runs  up 
into  the  heart  of  the  mountains.  We  climbed 
the  terraced  slope  leading  to  this  recess  and 
found  that  the  lower  half  of  the  valley  is  oc- 
cupied by  a  lake  about  a  mile  long,  and  said 
to  be  30  fathoms  deep.  It  lies  in  a  rock  basin, 
and  the  rocks  around  its  margin  show  that 
they  have  been  powerfully  abraded  by  ice. 
We  were  told  that  three  weeks  before  our 
visit  this  lake  was  solidly  frozen  over;  great 
sheets  of  snow,  indeed,  still  descended  to  the 
water's  edge,  and  were  melting  away  under 
the  glare  of  a  fierce  July  sun.  At  "the  far 
end  of  the  valley  mounds^of  angular  rubbish, 
cumbered  with  huge  blocks  of  stone,  stretched 
from  side  to  side,  while  overhead  two  glaciers 
came  out  of  the  edge  of  the  snow-field,  and 
hung  down  the  mountain  side — the  longer 
one  almost  reaching  the  bottom  of  the  valley. 
We  started  a  small  herd  of  reindeer  pasturing 
among  the  moraine  heaps.  The  animais 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


41 


bounded  over  the  snow-wreaths,  always 
choosing  the  firmest  portions  which  stretched 
as  natural  bridges  across  the  stream  that 
worked  its  way  underneath.  Here,  too,  the 
ice  was  ever  breaking  up,  and  crashing  down 
the  precipices  in  clouds  of  snowy  dust.  The 
debris  of  ice  gathered  into  talus  heaps  below, 
like  the  cones  de  dejection  at  the  foot  of  a  win- 
ter torrent. 

From  Bergsf  jord  we  continued  our  boating 
voyage  down  the  fjord,  and  found  fresn 
proofs  that  a  vast  body  of  ice,  descending 
from  the  lofty  JSkuls  Fjeld,  had  moved 
northward  along  the  length  of  the  inlet. 
Every  promontory  was  beautifully  smoothed 
and  polished  ;  while  the  grooves  and  striae 
slanted  up  and  over  the  projecting  bosses  of 
rock,  as  they  do  in  Loch  Fyne  and  the  other 
western  sea  lochs  of  Scotland.  Round  the 
headland  at  the  mouth  of  the  Bergs  Fjord  we 
turned  eastward,  and  soon  passed  the  mouth 
of  the  Ulf  jord.  We  could  see  that,  at  the  far 
end  of  that  inlet,  the  snow  of  the  great 
table-land  moves  outward  to  the  edge  of  the 
dark  precipices  which  encircle  the  Ulfjord, 
and  actually  forms  on  the  crest  of  these 
precipices  a  white  cliff,  from  which,  of 
course,  avalanches  are  constantly  falling 
Yet  the  under  part  of  this  snowy  cliff  is  not 
snow,  but  ice,  as  shown  by  its  blue  color 
contrasting  with  the  whiteness  of  the  upper 
layer,  which  is  snow  or  neve".  At  the  foot  of 
the  precipice  a  glacier,  derived  probably  in 
part,  like  that  of  Jokuls  Fjord,  from  the  ice- 
falls  from  above,  creeps  toward,  but  does  not 
reach,  the  bottom  of  the  valley.  Continuing 
our  eastward  journey,  we  saw  the  same  ter- 
races, still  skirting  the  hillsides,  now  as  green 
platforms  of  detritus  loaded  with  angular 
blocks,  and  now  as  sharp  horizontal  notches 
in  the  bare  rocks.  We  were  likewise  struck 
here,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  Norwegian 
coast,  with  the  greater  freshness  of  the  ice- 
markings  near  the  sea-level,  when  compared 
with  those  higher  up — a  difference  which  is 
likewise  very  noticeable  in  the  West  of  Scot- 
land. 

An  incident  occurred  in  this  part  of  the 
journey  which  helped  to  strengthen  the  par- 
allelism I  had  been  tracing  between  the  old 
glacial  conditions  of  Scotland  and  those  now 
existing  in  Arctic  Norway.  In  one  of  the 
hospitable  and  solitary  merchants'  houses  I 
found  a  little  girl  playing  with  valves  of  the 
red  Iceland  scallop  (Pecten  Islandicus)  or 
"  rode  heste,"  red  horses,  as  she  called  them. 
They  were  evidently  recent,  and  not  fossil 
shells,  and  I  found  them  strewn  plentifully 
on  the  beach.  This  species  once  lived  abund- 
antly among  the  western  fjords  of  Scotland, 
and  its  valves  are  there  plentiful  in  the  up- 
raised sea-floor  of  the  glacial  period.  But  it 
still  flourishes  in  the  fjords  of  Norway. 

The  Nus  Fjord  is  about  six  miles  long, 
and  lies  between  the  Ulfjord  and  Oxfjord. 
Its  margin  is  terraced  by  the  same  horizon- 
tal lines  so  constant  in  this  region.  Its  south- 


western side  presents  a  singularly  Arctic 
scene.  A  range  of  deeply  cleft  and  embayed 
crags  and  precipices,  plentifully  streaked 
with  snow,  rises  up  to  the  edge  of  the  snow- 
field,  which,  as  usual,  sends  down  into  every 
larger  valley  a  stream  of  blue  ice.  Eight  or 
ten  distinct  glaciers  may  be  counted,  of 
which  at  least  three  descend  from  the  snow- 
field.  The  others  lie  in  corries  detached  from 
the  snow-field,  though  in  some  cases  connected 
with  it  by  nearly  perpendicular  streaks  of  snow. 
Here,  as  in  the  Ulfjord,  the  edge  of  the  great 
sheet  of  snow  which  covers  the  table-land 
may  be  seen  ending  off  abruptly  as  a  cliff 
upon  the  crest  of  a  dark  precipice  of  rock, 
and  from  the  color  of  the  lower  part  of  the 
cliff  it  is  plain  that,  from  pressure  and  mo- 
tion,  the  under  portion  of  the  snow -sheet  is 
converted  into  ice,  and  as  ice  reaches  the 
verge  of  the  table-land,  where  it  breaks  sharp- 
ly ofl,  and  sends  its  ruins  to  the  bottom  of 
the  precipice  underneath.  There  the  debris, 
mingled  with  the  winter  snow,  is  anew  con- 
verted into  solid  ice,  and  creeps  downward 
as  a  glacier. 

At  the  head  of  the  fjord,  on  the  southeast 
side,  the  mouth  of  a  valley  which  terminates 
inland  at  the  foot  of  a  glacier  is  blocked  up 
by  an  old  moraine.  Behind  this  rampart  of 
detritus  the  valley  spreads  out  as  an  alluvial 
plain,  evidently  at  one  time  a  lake  formed  by 
the  moraine  barrier  at  the  foot.  The  mo- 
raine itself  is  strewed  with  enormous  angular 
blocks  of  rock,  beside  which  the  huts  of  a 
miserable  Lapp  encampment  look  like  mere 
pebbles.  The  side  of  this  moraine  facing 
the  fjord  is  cut  by  the  fifty-foot  beach.  On 
the  opposite  side  of  the  fjord  a  valley,  at  the 
head  of  which  a  glacier  comes  down  from 
the  Sneefond,  opens  upon  the  shore,  and  is 
curtained  across  by  a  terrace,  the  surface  of 
which  is  mottled  with  a  number  of  irregular 
concentric  mounds.  We  had  no  opportunity 
of  examining  these,  but  they  seemed  to  be 
moraine  heaps  left  by  the  glacier  when  it 
came  down  to  the  fjord.  They  vividly  re- 
called the  singular  concentric  mounds  that 
overlie  the  terrace  at  the  mouth  of  the  old 
glacier  valley  of  the  Brora  in  Sutherland- 
shire. 

We  walked  along  the  northeast  side  of  the 
fjord,  and  found  the  rocky  declivity  terraced 
with  old  sea-margins,  which  run  along  like 
ancientand  ruined  roadways.  They  occur  up 
to  perhaps  200  or  25ofett  above  the  sea-level, 
and  are  cut  in  the  hard  rock.  They  are 
covered  with  loose  blocks,  partly  derived 
from  the  rocks  around,  but  probably  in  part 
also  transported  from  a  higher  part  of  the 
valley.  On  the  beach  we  met  with  well  ice- 
worn  bosses  of  gneiss,  slipping  beneath  a 
gray  sandy  clay  full  of  Arctic  shells — a  con- 
junction which  is  closely  paralleled  by  one  on 
the  shores  of  Loch  Fyne.  Beth  in  the  Nor- 
wegian and  Scottish  examples  the  rocks 
underneath  are  beautifully  smoothed  and 
grooved,  showing  that  in  each  case  the  ice 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


which  molded  them  moved  down  the  length  i  tween   antiquity   and   decay   is  manifest  on 
of   the  inlet.     To  the  north  and  east  of  the  j  every  side.     An  ancient  building  is  expected 


Jokuls  Fjeld  the  ground  becomes  lower,  and 
descends  wholly  below  the  snow-line.  The 
hills  that  bound  the  Alten  Fjord,  instead  of 
rising  into  serrated  peaks,  like  the  higher 


to  look  more  or  less  decayed  ;  if  we  find  it  to 
look  fresh,  we  immediately,  and  as  it  were, 
instinctively,  doubt  its  antiquity. 

The  change  which  in  course  of  time  res-.ilts 


tracts  to  the  south,  have  a  well  ice-worn  as-  j  in  producing  the  crumbling,  venerable  aspect 
pect.  and  recall  the  hills  of  Cantyre,  or  the  j  of  a  piece  of  old  human  architecture  is  but 
scenery  of  parts  of  the  Hebrides.  Indeed,  part  of  the  continual  change  in  progress  upon 
the  whole  of  this  northern  district  of  Norway,  I  natural  surfaces  of  rock  all  over  the  world. 
from  the  Alten  Fjord  to  beyond  the  North  The  cliffs  of  a  mountain-side  or  sea-shors 


Cape,  has  the  smoothed  outline  which  farther 
southward  is  found  only  on  the  lower  zone  of 
the  mountains.  It  seems  as  if  a  sheet  o'f  ice, 
descending  from  the  south,  had  overriden  all 


reveal  piecisely  the  same  alteration,  but  in  a 
higher  degree,  for  they  rise  on  a  more  stu- 
pendous scale  and  have  been  exposed  to  the 
weather  for  an  enormously  longer  time  than 


the  fjords  here  and  the  comparatively  low    even  the  oldest  of  human  erections. 

i. ill*  between  them,  and  had  advanced  north-        This  kind  of  decay  is  briefly  described  as 


ward  into  the  Arctic  Sea. 

In  fine,  this  short  excursion  into  the  north- 
ern part  of  Scandinavia  furnished  us  with 
abundant  proofs  that  the  glaciation  of  the 
west  of  Norway  was  produced  by  a  mass  of 
land- ice,  of  which  the  present  glaciers  are 
the  representatives.  It  likewise  confirmed, 
in  a  most  impressive  way,  the  conclusion 
which  has  gained  ground  so  rapidly  within 
the  last  few  vears.  that  the  glaciation  of  the 
Scottish  Highlands.as  well  as  of  the  rest  of  the 
British  Isles,  is  in  the  main  the  work,  not  of 
floating  bergs,  but  of  la::d-ice.  This  conclu- 
sion may,  indeed,  be  regarded  as  demon- 
strated beyond  all  cavil  by  the  ice-marks  of 
Norway.  Much  good  work  might  be  done 
by  trying  to  work  out  a  detailed  comparison 


weathering."  It  is  a  complex  process, 
however,  or  rather  a  series  cf  processes,  de- 
pending on  the  one  hand  upon  the  relative 
efficiency  of  changes  of  temperature,  wind, 
rain,  and  frost ;  on  the  other  hand,  upon  the 
composition  and  textur  ;  of  the  stone  itself. 
Apart  from  the  problem  of  the  nature  of  the 
change  lies  the  question  of  its  rate.  Actual 
time-measures  are  as  yet  so  few  in  geological 
inquiry  that  any  attempt  may  be  welcomed 
which  promises  to  supply  one.  The  rate  o£ 
weathering  of  rocks  appears  to  be  a  question 
in  which  precise  measurement  should  not  be 
by  any  means  unattainable.  Comparatively 
little,  however,  has  yet  been  done  to  deter- 
mine with  precision,  or  even  approximately, 
the  rate  at  which  the  exposed  surfaces  of  dif- 


of  the  glaciation  of  the  Scandinavian  penin-  j  ferent  kinds  of  rock   decay.     A   few  years 


sula  with  that  of  Scotland.  More  espe- 
cially would  it  be  of  importance  to  ascertain 
how  far  the  glacial  deposits  of  the  two  coun- 
tries can  be  compared.  Doubtless  the  drift- 
covered  slopes  of  Sweden,  and  those  of  the 
cast  and  center  of  Scotland,  must  have  many 

feological  features  in  common.  It  will  per- 
»ps  be  found  that  some  of  the  difficulties 
which  our  Scottish  drift  presents  are  ex 
plained  by  the  more  extensive  deposits  of  the 
north,  while  the  latter  may  likewise  suggest 
new  explanations  of  phenomena  supposed  to 
be  already  sufficiently  intelligible. 


VII. 

ROCK-WEATHERING  MEASURED  BY 
THE  DECAY  OF  TOMBSTONES. 

A  building  or  other  object  having  an  an- 
t  que  aspect  is  called  "age-worn"  or  "time- 
eaten,"  or  is  described  by  some  other  phrase 
-which  implies  that  during  a  long  course  of 
years  the  object  in  question  had  been  suffer- 
ing from  some  slow  kind  of  change.  We 
speak  of  "the  gnawing  tooth  of  time,"  as  if 
time  were  a  material  form,  or  at  least  a  force 
•or  energy  endowed  with  certain  powers  of 
destructiveness,  though  obviously  mere  lapse 
of  time  can  have  no  such  influence.  That 
there  is  some  close  connection,  however,  be- 


ago,  some  experiments  were  instituted  by 
Professor  Pfaff,  of  Erlangen,  to  obtain  more 
definite  information  on  this  subject.  He  ex- 
posed to  ordinary  atmospheric  influences 
carefully  measured  and  weighed  pieces  of 
Solenhofen  limestone,  syenite,  granite  (both 
rough  and  polished),  and  bone.  At  the  end 
of  three  years  he  found  that  the  loss  from  the 
limestone  was  equivalent  to  the  removal  of  a 
uniform  layer  0*04  mm.  in  thickness  from  its 
general  surface.  The  stone  had  become 
quite  dull  and  earthy,  while  on  parts  of  its 
surface  fine  cracks  and  incipient  exfoliation 
had  appeared.  The  time  during  which  the 
observations  were  continued  was,  however, 
too  brief  to  allow  any  general  deductions  tc 
be  drawn  from  therti  as  to  the  real  average 
rate  of  disintegration.  Professor  Pfaff  re- 
lates that  during  the  period  a  severe  hail- 
storm broke  one  of  the  plates  of  stone.  An 
exceptionally  powerful  cause  of  this  nature 
might  make  the  loss  during  a  short  interval 
considerably  greater  than  the  true  average  of 
a  longer  period. 

It  occurred  to  me  recently  that  data  of  at 
least  a  provisional  value  might  be  obtained 
from  an  examination  of  tombstones  freely 
exposed  to  the  air  in  graveyards,  in  cases 
where  their  dates  remained  still  legible  or 
might  be  otherwise  ascertained.  I  have  ac- 
cordin 
groun 


gly  paid  attention  to  the  older  burial- 
ds  in  Edinburgh,  and  have  gathered  to 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


43 


gether  some  facts  which  have,  perhaps,  suf- 
ficient interest  and  novelty  to  be  worthy  of 
publication. 

At  the  outset  it  is  of  course  obvious  that 
in  seeking  for  data  bearing  on  the  general 
•question  of  rock-weathering,  we  must  admit 
the  kind  and  amount  of  such  weathering  vis- 
ible in  a  town  to  be  in  some  measure  differ- 
ent from  what  is  normal  in  nature.  So  far  as 
the  disintegration  of  rock-surfaces  is  affected 
by  mineral  acids,  for  example,  there  must  be 
a  good  deal  more  of  such  chemical  change 
where  sulphuric  acid  is  copiously  evolved  in- 
to the  atmosphere  from  thousands  of  chim 
neys  than  in  the  pure  air  of  country  districts. 
In  these  respects  we  may  regard  the  disin- 
tegration in  towns  as  an  exaggeration  of  the 
normal  rate.  Still,  the  difference  between 
town  and  country  may  be  less  than  might  be 
supposed.  Surfaces  of  stone  are  apt  to  get 
begrimed  with  dust  and  smoke,  and  the 
•crust  of  organic  and  inorganic  matter  deposit- 
ed upon  them  may  in  no  small  measure  pro- 
tect them  from  the  greater  chemical  activity 
of  the  more  acid  town  rain.  In  regard  to 
daily  or  seasonal  changes  of  temperature,  on 
the  other  hand,  which  unquestionably  exert 
a  powerful  influence  in  the  disintegration  of 
rock-surfaces,  any  difference  between  town 
and  country  may  not  impossibly  be  in  favor 
of  the  town.  Owing,  probably,  to  the  influ- 
ence of  smoke  in  retarding  radiation,  ther- 
mometers placed  in  open  spaces  in  town 
commonly  mark  an  extreme  nocturnal  tem- 
perature not  quite  so  low  as  those  similarly 
placed  in  the  suburbs,  while  they  show  a 
maximum  day  temperature  not  quite  so  high. 

The  illustrations  of  rock-weathering  pre- 
sented by  city  graveyards  are  necessarily 
limited  to  the  few  kinds  of  rock  employed 
for  monumental  purposes.  Around  Edin- 
burgh the  materials  used  are  of  three  kinds — 
ist,  Calcareous,  including  rmrbles  and  lime- 
stones; 2d,  sandstones  and  flagstones;  3d, 
granites. 

I.  CALCAREOUS. — With  extremely  rare  ex- 
ceptions, the  calcareous  tombstones  in  our 
graveyards  are  constructed  of  ordinary  white 
saccharoid  Italian  marble.  I  have  also  ob- 
served a  pink  Italian  shell-marble,  and  a 
finely  fossiliferous  limestone,  containing 
fragments  of  shells,  for.^minifera,  etc. 

In  a  few  cases  the  white  marble  has  been 
employed  by  itself  as  a  monolith  in  the  shape 
of  an  obelisk,  urn,  or  other  device;  but  most 
commonly  it  occurs  in  slabs  which  have  been 
tightly  fixed  in  a  frar.ework  of  sandstone. 
These  slabs,  from  less  than  one  to  fully  two 
inches  thick,  are  generally  placed  vertically; 
in  one  or  two  examples  they  have  been  in- 
serted in  large  horizontal  sandstone  slabs  or 
"through-stanes."  The  form  into  which 
the  stone  has  been  cut,  and  the  position  in 
which  it  has  been  erected,  have  had  consid- 
erable influence  on  its  weathering. 

A  specimen  of  the  common  white  marble 
employed  for  monumental  purposes  was  ob- 


tained from  one  of  the  marble  works  of  the 
city,  and  examined  microscopically.  It  pre- 
sented the  well-known  granular  character  of 
true  saccharoid  marble,  consisting  of  round- 
ed granules  of  clear  transparent  calcite,  aver- 
aging about  i-iooth  of  an  inch  in  diameter. 
Each  granule  has  its  own  system  of  twin  lam- 
ellation,  and  interference  color-bands.  The 
fundamental  rhombohedral  cleavage  is  every- 
where well  developed.  Not  a  trace  exists  of  any 
amorphous  granular  matrix  or  base  holding 
the  crystalline  grains  together.  These  seem 
molded  into  each  other,  but  have  evidently 
no  extraordinary  cohesion.  A  small  frag- 
ment placed  in  dilute  acid  was  entirely  dis- 
solved. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this 
marble  must  be  very  nearly  pure  carbonate  of 
lime. 

The  process  of  weathering  in  the  case  of 
this  white  marble  presents  three  phases, 
sometimes  to  be  observed  on  the  same  slab, 
namely,  superficial  solution,  internal  disin- 
tegration, and  curvature  with  fracture. 

(i.)  Superficial  Solution  is  effected  by  the 
carbonic  acid,  and  partly  by  the  sulphuric 
acid  of  town  rain.  When  the  marble  is  first 
erected  it  possesses  a  well-polished  surface, 
capable  of  affording  a  distinct  reflection  of 
objects  placed  in  front  of  it.  Exposure  for 
not  more  than  a  year  or  two  to  our  prevalent 
westerly  rains  suffices  to  remove  this  polish, 
and  to  give  the  surface  a  rough  granular 
character.  The  granules  which  have  been 
cut  across  or  bruised  in  the  cutting  and 
polishing  process  are  first  attacked  and  re- 
moved in  solution,  or  drop  out  of  the  stone. 
An  obelisk  in  Greyfnars  Churchyard,  erected 
in  memory  of  a  lady  who  died  in  1864,  has 
so  rough  and  granular  a  surface  that  it  might 
rea>'ily  be  taken  for  a  sandstone.  So  loosely 
are  the  grains  held  together  that  a  slight 
motion  of  the  finger  will  rub  them  off.  In 
the  course  of  solution  and  removal,  the  in- 
ternal structure  of  the  marble  begins  to 
reveal  itself.  Its  harder  nests  and  veinings 
of  calcite  and  other  minerals  project  above 
the  surrounding  surface,  and  may  be  traced 
as  prominent  ribs  and  excrescences  running 
across  the  faint  or  illegible  inscriptions.  On 
the  other  hand,  some  portions  of  the  marble 
are  more  rapidly  removed  than  other-.  Ir- 
regular channels,  dependent  partly  on  the 
direction  given  to  trickling  rain  by  the  form 
of  the  monumental  carving,  but  chiefly  on 
original  differences  in  the  internal  structure 
of  the  stone,  are  gradually  hollowed  out.  In 
this  way  the  former  artificial  surface  of  the 
marble  disappears,  and  is  changed  into  one 
that  rather  recalls  the  bare  bleached  rocks  of 
some  mountain-side. 

The  rate  at  which  the  transformation  talces 
place  seems  to  depend  primarily  on  the  ex- 
tent to  which  the  marble  is  exposed  to  rain. 
Slabs  which  have  been  placed  facing  to  the 
northeast,  and  with  a  sufficiently  projecting 
architrave  to  keep  off  much  of  tne  rainfall, 
retain  their  inscriptions  legible  for  a  century 


44 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


or  longer.  But  even  in  these  cases  the  pro- 
gress of  internal  disintegration  is  distinctly 
visible.  Where  the  marble  has  been  less 
screened  from  rain  the  rapidity  of  waste 
has  been  sometimes  very  marked.  A  good 
illustration  is  supplied  by  the  tablet  on  the 
south  side  of  Greyfriars  Churchyard,  erected 

in  memory  of  G— G ,  who  died  in 

1785.  This  monument  had  become  so  far  de- 
cayed as  to  require  restoration  in  1803.  It 
is  now,  and  has  been  for  some  years,  for  the 
most  part  utterly  illegible.  The  marble  has 
been  dissolved  away  over  the'  center  of  the 
slab  to  a  depth  of  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch. 
Yet  this  monument  is  by  no  means  in  an  ex- 
posed situation.  It  faces  eastward  in  a 
rather  sheltered  corner,  where,  however,  the 
wind  eddies  in  such  a  way  as  to  throw  the 
rain  against  the  part  of  the  stone  which  has 
been  most  corroded. 

In  the  majority  of  cases  superficial  solution 
has  been  retarded  by  the  formation  of  a  pe- 
culiar gray  or  begrimed  crust,  to  be  imme- 
diately described  The  marble  employed 
here  for  monumental  slabs  appears  to  be  pe- 
culiarly liable  to  the  development  of  this 
crust.  Another  kind  of  white  marble,  some- 
times employed  for  sculptured  ornaments  on 
tombstones,  dissolves  without  crust.  It  is 
snowy  white  and  more  translucent  than  the 
ordinary  marble.  So  far  as  the  few  weathered 
specimens  I  have  seen  enable  me  to  judge, 
it  appears  to  be  either  Carrara  marble,  or  one 
of  the  strongly  saccharoid,  somewhat  trans- 
lucent, varieties  employed  instead  of  it. 
This  stone,  however,  though  it  forms  no 
crust,  suffers  marked  superficial  solution. 
But  it  escapes  the  internal  disintegration, 
which,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  is  always 
an  accompaniment  of  the  crust.'  Yet  the  few 
examples  of  it  I  have  met  with  hardly  suffice 
for  any  comparison  between  the  varieties. 

(2.)  Internal  Disintegration. — Many  of  the 
marble  monuments  in  our  older  churchyards 
are  covered  with  a  dirty  crust,  beneath 
which  the  stone  is  found  on  examination  to 
be  merely  a  loose  crumbling  sand,  of  inco- 
herent calcite  granules.  This  crust  seems  to 
form  chiefly  where  superficial  solution  is 
feeble.  It  may  be  observed  to  crack  into 
*  polygonal  network,  the  individual  polygons 
occasionally  curling  up  so  as  to  reveal  the 
yellowish  white  crumbling  material  under- 
neath. It  also  rises  in  blisters  which,  when 
they  break,  expose  the  interior  to  rapid  dis- 
integration. 

So  long  as  this  begrimed  film  lasts  un- 
broken the  smooth  face  of  the  marble  slab  re- 
mains with  apparently  little  modification. 
The  inscription  may  be  perfectly  legible,  and 
one  would  not  readily  believe  the  stone  to  be 
decayed  at  all.  The  moment  the  crust  is 
broken  up,  however,  the  decay  of  the  stone  is 
rapid.  For  we  then  see  that  beneath  the 
smooth,  coherent  surface  film  the  cohesion  of 
ehe  individual  crystalline  granules  of  the 
4narble  has  already  been  destroyed,  and  that 


the  merest  touch  causes  them  to  crumble  into 
a  loose  sand. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  two  changes  take 
place  in  upright  marble  slabs  freely  exposed 
to  rain  in  our  burial  grounds — a  superficial, 
more  or  less  firm  crust  is  formed,  and  the  co- 
hesion of  the  particles  beneath  is  destroyed. 

The  crust  varies  in  color  from  a  dirty  gray 
to  a  deep  brown-black,  and  in  thickness  from 
that  of  writing-paper  up  to  sometimes  at  least 
a  milimetre.  One  of  the  most  characteristic 
examples  of  it  was  obtained  from  an  utterly 
decayed  tomb  (erected  in  the  year  1792)00 
the  east  side  of  Canongate  Churchyard.  No 
one  would  suppose  that  the  pieces  of  flat 
dark  stone  lying  there  on  the  sandstone  plinth 
were  once  portions  of  white  marble.  Yet  a 
mere  touch  suffices  to  break  the  black  crust, 
and  the  stone  at  once  crumbles  to  powder. 
Nevertheless  the  two  opposite  faces  of  the 
original  polished  slab  have  been  preserved, 
and  I  even  found  the  sharply-chiseled  socket- 
hole  of  one  of  the  retaining-nails.  The  speci- 
men was  can  fully  removed  and  soaked  in  a 
solution  of  gum,  so  as  to  preserve  it  from  dis- 
integration. On  submitting  the  crust  of  this 
marble  to  microscopic  investigation,  I  found  it 
to  consist  of  particles  of  coal  and  soot,  grains 
of  quartz-sand,  angular  pieces  of  broken  glass,' 
fragments  of  red  brick  or  tile,  and  organic 
fibres.  This  miscellaneous  collection  of  town 
!  dust  was  held  together  by  some  amorphous 
j  cement,  which  was  not  dissolved  by  hydro- 
chloric acid.  At  my  request  my  friend,  Mr. 
B.  N.  Peach,  tested  it  with  soda  on  charcoal, 
and  at  once  obtained  a  strong  sulphur  reaction. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  is  mainly  sul- 
phate of  lime.  The  crust  which  forms  upon 
our  marble  tombstones  is  thus  a  product  of 
the  reaction  of  the  sulphuric  acid  <Jf  the  town 
rain  upon  the  calcium  carbonate  of  the  stone. 
A  pellicle  of  amorphous  gypsum  is  deposited 
upon  the  marble,  and  encloses  the  particles 
of  dust  \  hich  give  the  characteristic  sooty 
aspect  to  the  stone.  This  pellicle,  when  once 
formed,  seems  to  be  comparatively  little  af- 
fected by  the  chemical  activity  of  rain  water. 
Hence  the  conservation  of  the  even  surface 
of  the  marble.  It  is  liable,  however,  to  be 
cracked  by  an  internal  expansion  of  the  stone, 
to  which  I  shall  immediately  refer,  and  also 
to  rise  in  small  blisters,  and,  as,  I  have  said, 
its  rupture  leads  at  once  to  the  rapid  disin- 
tegration of  the  stone. 

The  cause  of  this  disintegration  is  the  next 
point  for  consideration.  Chemical  examina- 
tion revealed  the  presence  of  a  slight  amount 
of  sulphate  in  the  heart  of  the  crumbling 
marble  ;  but  the  quantity  appeared  to  me  to 
be  too  small  seriously  to  affect  the  cohesion 
of  the  stone.  I  submitted  to  microscopic 
examination  a  portion  of  a  crumbling  urn  of 
white  marble  in  Canongate  Churchyard. 
The  tomb  bears  a  perfectly  fresh  date  of 
1792  cut  in  sandstone  over  the  top  ;  but  the 
marble  portions  are  crumbling  into  sand, 
though  the  structure  faces  the  east,  and  is 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


protected  from  vertical  rain  by  arching  mason- 
work.  A  small  portion  of  the  marble  retain- 
ing its  crust  was  boiled  in  Canada  balsam, 
and  was  then  sliced  at  a  right  angle  to  its 
original  polished  surface.  By  this  means  a 
section  of  the  crumbled  marble  was  obtained, 
which  could  be  compared  with  one  of  the 
perfectly  fresh  stone.  From  the  dark  outer 
amorphous  crust,  with  its  carbonaceous  and 
other  miscellaneous  particles,  fine  rifts  could 
be  seen  passing  down  between  the  separated 
calcite  granules,  which  in  many  cases  were 
quite  isolated.  The  black  crust  descends 
into  these  rifts,  and  likewise  passes  along  the 
•cleavage  planes  of  the  granules.  Toward 
the  outer  surface  of  the  stone,  immediately 
beneath  the  crust,  the  fissures  are  chiefly 
tilled  with  a  yellowish,  structureless  substance, 
which  gave  a  feeble  glimmering  reac- 
tion with  polar.zed  light,  and  enclosed 
minute  amorphous  aggn  gates  like  portions 
of  the  crust.  It  probaoly  co-.  ists  chiefly  of 
sulphate  of  lime.  But  the  must  remarkable 
feature  in  the  slide  was  the  way  in  which  the 
calcite  granules  had  been  corroded.  Seen 
with  reflected  light  they  resembled  those  sur- 
faces of  spar  which  have  been  placed  in  weak 
hydrochloric  acid  to  lay  bare  enclosed  crystals 
of  zeolites.  The  solution  had  taken  place 
partly  along  the  outer  surfaces,  so  as  to  pro- 
duce the  fine  passages  or  rifts,  and  partly 
along  the  cleavage.  Deep  cavities,  defined 
by  intersecting  cleavage  planes,  appeared  to 
descend  into  the  heart  of  borne  of  the  gran- 
ules. In  no  case  did  I  observe  any  white  pel- 
licle such  as  might  indicate  a  redeposit  of 
lime  from  the  dissolved  carbonate.  Except 
for  the  veinings  of  probable  sulphate  just  re- 
ferred to,  the  lime,  when  once  dissolved,  had 
apparently  been  wholly  removed  in  solution. 
There  was  further  to  be  observed  a  certain 
dirtiness,  so  to  speak,  which  at  the  first 
glance  distinguished  the  section  of  crumbled 
marble  from  the  fresh  stone.  This  was  due 
partly  to  corrosion,  but  chiefly  to  the  intro- 
duction of  particles  of  soot  and  dust,  which 
•could  be  traced  among  the  interstices  and 
cleavage  lamellae  of  the  crystalline  granules 
for  some  distance  back  from  the  crust. 

It  may  be  inferred,  therefore,  that  the  dis- 
integration of  the  marble  is  mainly  due  to  the 
action  of  carbonic  acid  in  the  permeating 
rain-water,  whereby  the  component  crystal- 
line granules  of  the  stone  are  partially  dis- 
solved and  their  mutual  adhesion  is  destroyed. 
This  piocess  goes  on  in  all  exposures  and 
with  every  variety  in  the  thickness  of  the 
outer  crust.  It  is  distinctly  traceable  in 
tombstones  that  have  not  been  erected  for 
more  than  twenty  years.  In  those  which 
have  been  standing  for  a  century  it  is,  save 
in  exceptionally  sheltered  positions,  so  far 
advanced  that  a  very  slight  pressure  suffices 
to  crumble  the  stone  in'o  powder.  But  with 
this  internal  disintegration  we  have  to  take 
into  consideration  the  third  phase  of  weather- 
ing to  which  I  have  alluded.  In  the  upright 


marble  slabs  it  is  the  union  of  the  two  kinds 
of  decay  that  leads  to  so  rapid  an  effacement 
of  the  monuments. 

(3  )  Curvature  and  Fracture. — This  most 
remarkable  phase  of  rock-weathering  is  only 
to  be  observed  in  the  slabs  of  marble  which 
have  been  firmly  inserted  into  a  solid  frame- 
work of  sandstone,  and  placed  in  an  erect  or 
horizontal  position.  It  consists  in  the  bulg- 
ing out  of  the  marble  accompanied  with  a 
series  of  fractures.  This  change  cannot  be 
explained  as  mere  sagging  by  gravitation,  for 
it  usually  appears  as  a  swelling  up  of  the 
center  of  the  slab,  which  continues  until  the 
large  blister-like  expansion  is  ruptured.  Nor 
is  it  by  any  means  exceptional  ;  it  occurs,  as 
a  rule,  on  all  the  older  upright  marble  tablets, 
and  is  only  found  to  be  wanting  in  those 
cases  where  the  marble  has  evidently  not 
been  fitted  tightly  into  its  sandstone  frame. 
Wherever  there  has  be.n  little  or  no  room  for 
expansion,  protuberance  of  the  marble  may 
be  observed.  Successive  stages  may  be  seen 
from  the  first  gentle  uprise  to  an  unsightly 
swelling  of  the  whole  stone.  This  change  is 
accompanied  by  fracture  of  the  marble.  The 
rents  in  some  cases  proceed  from  the  margin 
inward,  more  particularly  from  the  upper 
and  under  edges  of  the  stone,  pointing  un- 
mistakably to  an  increase  in  volume  as  the 
cause  of  fracture.  In  other  cases  the  rents 
appear  in  the  central  part  of  the  swelling 
where  the  tension  from  curvature  has  been 
greatest. 

Some  exceedingly  interesting  examples  of 
this  singular  process  of  weathering  are  to  be 
seen  in  Grey'riars  Churchyard.  On  the  south 
wall,  in  the  enclosure  of  a  well-known  county 
family,  there  is  an  oblong  upright  marble 
slab  facing  west,  and-  measuring  30^  inches 
in  height  by  22^  inches  in  breadth  and 

inch  in  thickness.  The  last  inscrip- 
tion on  it  bears  date  1838,  at  which  time,  of 
course,  it  was  no  doubt  still  smooth  and  up- 
right. Since  then,  however,  it  has  escaped 
from  its  fastenings  on  either  side,  though 
still  held  firmly  at  the  top  and  bottom.  It 
consequently  projects  from  the  wall  like  a 
well-filled  sail.  The  axis  of  curvature  is,  of 
course,  parallel  to  the  upper  and  lower  mar- 
gins, and  the  amount  of  deviation  from  the 
ariginal  vertical  line  is  fully  2^  inches,  so 
that  the  hand  and  arm  can  be  inserted  be- 
tween the  curved  marble  and  the  perfectly 
vertical  and  undisturbed  wall  to  which  it  was 
fixed.  At  the  lower  end  of  the  slab  a  minor 
curvature,  to  the  extent  of  >^  of  an  inch,  is 
observable,  coincident  with  the  longer  axis 
of  the  stone.  In  both  cases  the  direction  of 
the  benaing  has  been  determined  by  the  po- 
sition of  the  enclosing  solid  frame  of  sandstone 
which  resisted  the  internal  expansion  of 
he  marble.  Freed  from  its  fastenings  at 
either  side,  the  stone  has  assumed  a  simple 
wave-like  curve.  But  the  tension  has  become 
so  great  that  a  series  of  rents  has  appeared 
along  the  crest  of  the  fold.  One  of  these  has 


46  J 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


a  breadth  of  one-tenth  of  an  inch  at  its  open- 
ing. Not  only  h«s  the  slab  been  ruptured, 
but  its  crust  has  likewise  yielded  to  the  strain, 
and  has  broken  u  .  into  a  network  of  cracks, 
and  some  of  the  Louted  portions  are  begin- 
ning to  curl  up  at  the  edges,  exposing  the 
crumbling,  decayed  marble  below.  I  should 
add  that  such  has  been  the  expansive  force  of 
the  marble  that  the  part  of  the  sandstone 
block  in  the  upper  part  of  the  frame,  exposed 
to  the  direct  pressure,  has  begun  to  exfoliate, 
though  elsewhere  the  stone  is  quite  sound. 

More  advanced  stages  of  curvature  and 
fracture  may  be  noticed  on  many  other  tomb- 
stones in  the  same  burying-place.  One  of 
the  most  conspicuous  of  these  has  a  peculiar 
interest  from  the  fact  that  it  occurs  on  the 
tablet  erected  to  the  memory  of  one  of  the 
most  illustrious  dead  whose  dust  lies  within 
the  precincts  of  the  Greyfriars — the  great  Jo- 
seph Black.  He  died  in  1799.  In  the  cen- 
ter of  the  sumptuous  tomb  raised  over  his 
grave  is  inserted  a  large  uprig..t  slab  of  white 
marble,  which,  facing  south,  is  protected  from 
the  weather  partly  by  heavy  overhanging  ma- 
sonry and  partly  by  a  high  stone  wall  imme- 
diately to  t  e  west.  On  this  slab  a  Latin  in- 
scription records  with  pious  reverence  the  ge- 
nius and  achievements  of  the  discoverer  of 
carbonic  acid  and  latent  heat;  and  adds  that 
his  friends  wished  to  mark  his  resting-place 
by  the  marble  whilst  it  should  last.  Less 
than  eighty  years,  however,  have  sufficed  to 
render  the  inscription  already  partly  illegible. 
The  stone,  still  firmly  held  all  round  its  mar- 
gin, has  bulged  out  considerably  in  the  cen- 
ter, and  -the  blister-like  expansion  has  been 
rent  by  numerous  cracks,  which  run,  on  the 
whole,  in  the  direction  of  the  length  of  the 
stone 

A  further  stage  of  decay  is  exhibited  by  a 
remarkable  torn.*  on  the  west  wall  of  the 
Greyfriars  Churchyard.  The  marble  slab, 
bearing  a  now  almost  wholly  effaced  inscrip- 
tion, on  which  the  di-te  1779  can  be  seen,  is 
still  held  tightly  within  its  enclosing  frame  of 
sandstone  slabs,  which  are  firmly  built  into 
the  wall.  But  it  has  swollen  out  into  a  ghast- 
ly protuberance  in  the  center,  and  is,  more- 
over, seamed  with'  rents  which  strike  inward 
from  the  margins.  In  this  and  in  some 
other  examples  the  marble  seems  to  have  un- 
dergone most  change  on  the  top  of  the  swell- 
ing, partly  from  the  system  of  fine  fissures 
by  which  it  is  broken  up,  and  partly  from 
more  direct  and  effective  access  of  ram. 
Eventually  the  cohesion  of  the  stone  at  that 
part  is  destroyed,  and  the  crumbling  marble 
falls  out,  leaving  a  hole  in  the  middle  of  the 
slab.  When  this  takes  place,  disintegration 
proceeds  rapidly.  Three  years  ago  I  sketched 
a  tomb  in  this  stage  on  t^e  east  wall  of  Can- 
nongate  Churchyard.  In  a  recent  visit  to 
the  place  I  found  that  the  whole  of  the  mar- 
ble had  since  fallen  out. 

The  first  cause  that  naturally  suggests  it- 
df  in  explanation  of  the  remarkable  change 


in  the  structure  of  a  substance  usually  be- 
lieved to  be  so  inelastic  as  white  marble,  is 
the  action  of  frost.  White  statuary  marble 
is  naturally  porous.  It  is  rendered  still  more 
so  by  that  internal  solution  which  I  have 
described.  The  marble  tombstones  in  our 
graveyards  are  therefore  capable  of  imbibing 
'  a  relatively  large  amount  of  moisture.  When 
this  interstitial  water  is  frozen,  its  expansive 
force,  as  it  passes  into  the  solid  state,  must 
increase  the  isolation  of  the  granules  and 
augment  the  dimensions  of  a  marble  blocK. 
I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  this  must  be  the 
principal  cause  of  the  c'uange.  Whatever 
may  be  the  nature  of  the  process,  it  is  evi- 
dently one  which  acts  from  within  the  marble 
itself.  Microscopic  examination  fails  to  dis- 
cover any  chemical  transformation  which 
would  account  for  the  expansion.  Dr.  Angus 
Smith  has  pointed  out  that  in  towns  the 
mortar  of  walls  may  be  observed  to  swell  up- 
and  lose  cohesion  from  a  conversion  of  its 
lime  into  the  condition  of  sulphate.  I  h  ve 
already  mentioned  that  sulphate  does  exist. 
within  the  substance  of  the  marble,  but  that 
its  quantity,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  is  too- 
small  to  be  taken  into  account  in  this  ques- 
tion. T  .e  expansive  power  is  exerted  in 
such  a  way  as  not  sensibly  to  affect  the 
internal  structure  and  composition  of  the- 
stone.  And  .this,  I  imagine,  is  mos:  probably 
the  work  of  frost. 

The  results  of  my  observations  among  our 
burial-grounds  show  that,  save  in  exception- 
ally sheltered  situations  slabs  of  marbie,  ex- 
posed to  the  weather  in  such  a  climate  and 
atmosphere  as  that  of  Edinburgh,  are  en- 
tirely destroyed  in  less  tnan  a  century. 
Where  this  destruction  takes  place  by  simple: 
comparatively  rapid  superticial  solution  and. 
removal  of  the  stone,  the  rate  of  lowering  of 
the  surface  amounts  sometimes  to  about  a. 
third  of  an  inch  (or  roughly  nine  millimeters)- 
in  a  century.  Where  it  is  effected  by  internal 
displacement,  a  curvature  of  two-and-a-half 
inches,  with  a.. undaut  rents,  a  partial  efface- 
ment  of  the  insciipiion,  and  a  reduction  of 
the  marble  to  a  pu.verulent  condition,  may  be 
produced  in  about  iorty  years,  and  a  total 
disruption  and  tffacetncnt  of  the  stone  within, 
one  hundred.  It  is  evident  ihit  white  mar- 
ble is  here  utterly  unsuited  for  out-of-door 
use,  and  that  its  employment  for  works  of 
art  which  are  meant  to  stand  in  the  open  air 
in  such  a  climate  ought  to  be  strenuously 
resisted.  Of  course,  I  am  now  referring  not 
to  the  durability  of  marble  generally,  but  to 
its  behavior  in  a  large  town  with  a  moist  cli- 
mate and  plenty  of  coal-smoke. 

II.  SANDSTONES  AND  FLAGSTONES.  — 
These,  being  the  common  building  ma- 
terials of  the  country,  are  of  most  frequent 
occurrence  as  monumental  sto --e*  -'-vl  *her,- 
,jt  operly  selected  are  remarkably  durable.  By 
far  the  best  varieties  are  those  which  consist 
of  a  nearly  pure  fine  silicious  sand,  with 
little  or  no  iron  or  lime,  and  without  tract  of 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


47 


bedding  or  other  structure,  borne  <-f  them 
contain  as  much  as  ninety-eight  per  cent,  of 
silica.  A  good  illustration  of  their  power 
of  resisting  the  weather  is  supplied  by 
Alexander  Henderson  s  tomb  in  Greyfriars 
Churchyard.  He  died  in  1646,  and  a  few 
/ears  afterwards,  the  present  tombstone,  in 
*.he  form  of  a  solid  square  block  of  freestone, 
was  erected  over  his  grave.  It  was  ordered 
to  be  defaced  in  1662  by  command  of  the 
Scottish  Parliament,  but  after  1688  it  was 
repaired.  Certain  bullet  marks  upon  the 
stone  are  pointed  out  as  those  of  the  soldiery 
sent  to  execute  the  order.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
the  original  chisel  marks  on  the  polished 
surface  of  the  stone  are  still  perfectly  distinct, 
and  the  inscribed  lettering  remains  quite 
sharp.  Two  hundred  years  have  effected 
hardly  any  change  upon  the  stone,  save  that 
on  the  west  and  north  sides,  which  are  those 
most  exposed  to  wind  and  rain,  the  surface 
is  somewhat  roughened,  and  the  internal  fine 
parallel  jointing  begins  to  show  itself. 

Three  obvious  causes  of  decay  in  arena- 
ceous rocks  may  be  traced  among  our 
monuments.  In  the  first  place,  the  presence 
of  a  soluble  or  easily  removable  matrix  in 
which  the  sand-grains  are  embedded.  The 
most  common  kinds  of  matrix  are  clay,  car- 
bonates of  lime  and  iron,  and  the  anhydrous 
and  hydrous  peroxides  of  iron.  The  pres- 
ence of  the  iron  reveals  itself  by  its  yellow, 
brown,  or  red  color.  So  rapid  is  disintegra- 
tion from  removal  of  the  matrix  that  the 
sharply-incised  date  of  a  monument  erected 
in  Greyfriars  Churchyard  to  an  officer  who 
died  only  in  1863  is  no  longer  legible.  At 
least  one-eighth  of  an  inch  of  surface  has 
here  been  removed  from  a  portion  of  the  slab 
in  sixteen  years,  or  at  the  rate  of  about 
three-quarters  of  an  inch  in  a  century. 

In  the  second  place,  where  a  sandstone  is 
marked  by  distinct  laminae  of  stratification,  it 
is  nearly  certain  to  split  up  along  these  planes 
under  the  action  of  the  weather,  if  the  surface 
of  the  bedding  planes  is  directly  exposed. 
This  is  well  known  to  builders,  who  are 
quite  aware  of  the  importance  of  "laying  a 
stone  on  its  bed."  Examples  may  be  ob- 
served in  our  churchyards  where  sandstones 
of  this  character  have  been  used  for  pilasters 
and  ornamental  work,  and  where  the  stone, 
stt  on  its  edge,  has  peeled  off  in  successive 
layers.  In  flagstones,  which  are  merely 
Jhiuly-bedded  sandstones,  this  minute  lami- 
aat ion  is  often,  fatal  to  .  durability.  These 
•tones,  from  the  arge  size  in  which  slabs  of 
them  can  be  obtained,  and  from  the  ease 
with  which  they  can  be  worked,  form  a 
tempting  material  for  monumental  inscrip- 
tions. Tie  mela-icholy  result  of  trusting  to 
their  permanence  is  strikingly  shewn  by  a 
tombstone  at  the  end  ot  the  south  burying, 
ground  in  Greyfriars  Churchyard.  The  date 
inscribed  on  it  is  1841,  and  the  lettering  that 
remains  is  as  sharp  as  if  cut  only  recently. 
The  stone  weathers  very  little  by  surface  dis- 


integration. It  is  a  laminated  flagstone  set 
on  edge,  and  large  portions  have  scaled  off. 
leaving  a  rough,  raw  surface  where  the  in- 
scription once  ran.  In  this  instance  a  thick- 
ness of  about  one-third  of  an  inch  has  been 
removed  in  forty  years. 

In  the  third  nlace.  where  a  sandstone  con- 
tains concretionary  masses  of  different  com- 
position or  texture  from  the  main  portion  of 
the  stone,  these  are  apt  to  weather  at  a  dif- 
ferent rate.  Sometimes  they  resist  destruc- 
tion better  than  the  surrounding  sandstone 
so  as  to  be  left  as  permanent  excrescences. 
More  commonly  they  present  less  resistance, 
and  are  therefore  hollowed  out  into  irregular 
a  ,d  often  exceedingly  fantastic  shapes.  Ex- 
amples of  this  kind  of  weathering  abound  in 
our  neighborhood.  Perhaps  the  most  curi- 
ous to  which  a  date  can  be  assigned  are  to 
be  found  in  the  two  sandstone  pillars  which 
until  recently  flanked  the  tomb  of  Principal 
Carstares  in  Greyfriars  Churchyard.  They 
were  erected  some  time  after  the  y  ar  1715. 
Each  of  them  is  formed  of  a  single  block  of 
stone  about  eight  feet  long.  Exposure  to 
the  air  for  about  1 50  years  has  allowed  the 
original  differences  of  texture  or  composition 
to  make  their  influence  apparent.  Each  col- 
umn is  hollowed  out  for  almost  its  entire 
length  on  the  exposed  side  into  a  trough 
four  to  six  inches  deep  and  six  to  eight  inches 
broad.  As  they  lean  against  the  wall,  be- 
neath the  new  pillars  which  have  supplanted 
them,  tney  suggest  some  rude  form  of  canoe 
rather  than  portions  of  a  sephulchra!  monu- 
ment. 

Where  concretions  are  of  a  pyritous  kind 
their  decomposition  gives  rise  to  sulphuric 
acid,  some  of  which  combines  with  ihe  iron 
and  gives  rise  to  dark  stains  upon  the  cor- 
roded surface  of  the  stone.  Some  of  the 
sandstones  of  the  district,  full  of  sucn  im- 
purities, ought  never  to  be  employed  for 
architectural  purposes.  Every  block  of  stone 
in  which  they  occur  should  be  unhesitatingly 
condemned  Want  of  attention  to  this  ob- 
vious rule  has  led  to  the  unsightly  disfigure- 
ment of  public  buildings. 

III.  GRANITES. — In  Professor  Pfaff's  ex- 
perimems,  to  which  I  have  already  referred, 
he  employed  plates  of  syenite  and  granite, 
both  rough  and  polished.  He  found  that 
they  had  all  lost  slightly  in  weight  at  the  end 
of  a  year.  The  annual  rate  of  loss  was  est*.  • 
mated  by  him  as  equal  to  o-oo76  min.  from 
the  unpolished,  and  o'ooSs  from  the  polished 
granite.  That  a  polished  surface  of  granite 
should  weather  more  rapidly  than  a  rough  one 
is  perhaps  hardly  what  might  have  been  ex- 
pected. The  same  observer  remarks  that 
though  the  polished  surface  of  syenite  was 
still  bright  at  the  end  of  not  more  than  three 
years,  it  was  less  so  than  at  first  ;  and,  in 
particular,  that  some  figures  indicating  the 
date,  which  he  had  written  on  it  with  a  dia- 
mond, had  become  entirely  defaced.  Granite 
has  been  employed  for  too  short  a  time  as  a 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


monumental  stone  in  our  cemeteries  to  afford 
any  readv  means  of  measuring  even  approx- 
imately its  rate  of  weathering.  Traces  of 
decay  in  s  me  of  its  feldspar  crystals  may  be 
detected,  yet  in  no  case  that  I  have  seen  is 
1'he  decay  of  a  polished  granite  surface  sen- 
sibly apparent  after  exposure  for  fifteen  or 
twenty  years.  That  the  polish  will  disappear, 
•and  that  the  surface  will  gradually  roughen 
as  the  individual  component  crystals  are  more 
or  less  easily  attacked  by  the  weather,  is  of 
cour  e  sufficiently  evident.  Even  the  most 
durable  granite  will  probably  be  far  surpassed 
in  permanence  by  the  best  of  our  silicious 
sandstones.  But  as  yet  the  data  do  not  exist 
for  making  any  satisfactory  comparison  be- 
tween them. 

Since  the  preceding  pages  were  written  I 
have  had  an  opportunity  of  examining  the 
condition  of  the  monumental  stones  in  the 
graveyards  of  a  number  of  towns  and  villages 
in  the  northeast  of  Scotland,  where  the  popu- 
lation is  sparse  and  where  comparatively  little 
•coal-smoke  passes  into  the  atmosphere.  The 
marble  tablets  last  longer  there  than  in  Edin- 
burg,  but  show  everywhere  indications  of  de- 
cay. They  appear  to  be.  quite  free  from  the 
black  or  gray  sulphate-crust  They  suffer 


chiefly  from  superficial  erosion, but  I  observed 
a  few  cases  of  curvature  and  fracture.  As  a 
contrast  to  the  universal  decay  of  the  marble 
tombstones,  reference  may  be  made  to  the 
remarkable  durability  of  the  clay-slate  which 
has  been  employed  for  monumental  purposes 
in  Aberdeenshire.  It  is  a  fine-grained,  rather 
soft  rock,  containing  scattered  tubes  of  py- 
rites, and  capable  of  being  readily  dressed 
into  thin  smooth  slabs.  A  tombstone  of  this 
material,  erected  in  the  old  burying-ground 
at  Peterhead,  sometime  between  1785  and 
1790,  retains  its  lettering  as  sharp  and  smooth 
as  if  only  recently  incised.  Yet  the  stone  is 
soft  enough  to  be  easily  cut  with  the  knife. 
The  cubes  of  pyrites  have  resisted  weathering 
so  well  that  a  mere  thin  film  of  brown  hydrous 
peroxide  conceals  the  brassy  undecomposed 
sulphide  from  view.  The  slate  is  slightly 
stained  yellow  round  each  cube  or  kernel  of 
pyrites,  but  its  general  smooth  surface  is  not 
affected.  The  lapse  of  nearly  a  century  has 
produced  scarcely  any  change  upon  this  stone, 
while  neighboring  tablets  of  white  marble, 
loo  to  150  years  old,  present  rough  granular 
surfaces  and  half-effaced  though  still  legible 
'nscriptions. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 


I.    MY  FIRST  GEOLOGICAL  EXCURSION        .        .        .        .       .       .       . 

II.  "THE  OLD  MAN  OF  HOY" 

III.  THE  BARON'S  STONE  OF  KILLOCHAN +.r , 

IV.  THB   COLLIERS  OF  CARRICK .• 

V.    AMONG  THE   VOLCANOES  OF  CENTRAL  FRANCE       .... 

V/..    THE  OLD  GLACIERS  OF  NORWAY  AND  SCOTLAND       .... 
Til.    ROCK-WEATHERING  MEASURED  BY  THE  DECAY  OF  TOMBSTONES 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES 

AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 

BY  ARCHIBALD  GEIKIE,  LL.D.,  F.R.S., 

Director-General  of  the  Geological  Surveys  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 


IN  TWO  PARTS— PART  H. 


A    FRAGMENT    OF    PRIMEVAL 
EUROPE. 

When  the  history  of  the  growth  of  the 
European  area  is  traced  backward  through 
successive  geological  periods,  it  brings  before 
us  a  remarkable  persistence  of  land  toward 
the  north.  The  stratified  formations  bear  a 
generally  concurrent  testimony  to  the  exist- 
ence of  a  northern  source  whence  much  of 
their  sediment  was  derived,  even  from  very 
early  geological  times.  In  their  piles  of  con- 
solidated gravel,  sand,  and  mud,  their  un- 
conformabilities  and  their  buried  coast-lines, 
they  tell  of  some  boreal  land  which,  continu- 
ally suffering  denudation,  but  doubtless  at 
intervals  restored  and  augmented  by  up- 
heaval, has  gradually  extended  over  the 
whole  of  the  present  European  area.  The 
chronicles  of  this  most  interesting  history  are 
at  best  imperfect,  and  have  hitherto  been 
only  partially  deciphered.  They  naturally 
assume  an  increasingly  fragmentary  and  ob- 
scure character  in  proportion  to  their  an- 
tiquity. Nevertheless  traces  can  still  be  de- 
tected of  the  shores  against  which  the  oldest 


known  sedimentary  accumulations  were 
piled.  These  shores  have  of  course  been 
deeply  buried  under  the  deposits  of  subse- 
quent ages.  But  the  whirligig  of  time  has 
once  mere  brought  them  up  to  the  light  of 
day  by  stripping  off  the  thick  piles  of  rock 
beneath  which  they  have  lain  preserved 
during  so  vast  a  cycle  of  geological  revo- 
lutions. I  shall  here  describe  a  fragment  of 
this  earliest  land,  and  allude  to  some  of  the 
geological  problems  which  it  suggests. 

In  the  northwest  of  Scotland,  along  the 
seaboard  of  the  counties  of  Ross  and  Suther- 
land, a  peculiar  type  of  scenery  presents 
itself,  which  reappears  nowhere  else  on  the 
mainland.  Whether  the  traveler  approaches 
the  region  from  the  sea  or  from  the  land,  he 
can  hardly  fail  to  be  struck  by  this  pecu- 
liarity, even  though  he  may  have  no  special 
geological  eye  for  the  discrimination  of  rock- 
structures.  Seen  from  the  westward  or  the 
Atlantic  side,  as,  for  example,  when  sailing 
into  Loch  Torridon,  or  passing  the  mouths 
of  the  western  fjords  of  Sutherlandshire,  the 
land  rises  out  of  the  water  in  a  succession  of 
bare  rounded  domes  of  rock,  crowding  be- 
hind and  above  each  other  as  far  as  the  eyo 
car.  reach.  Not  a  tree  or  bush  casts  » 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


shadow  over  these  folds  of  barren  rock.  It 
might  at  first  be  supposed  that  even  heather 
had  been  unable  to  find  a  foothold  on  them 
Gray,  rugged,  and  verdureless,  they  look  as 
if  they  had  but  recently  been  thrust  up  from 
beneath  the  waves,  and  as  if  the  kindly  hand 
of  nature  had  not  yet  had  time  to  clothe  them 
with  her  livery  of  green.  Strange,  however, 
as  this  scenery  appears  when  viewed  from  a 
distance,  it  becomes  even  stranger  when  we 
enter  into  it,  and  more  especially  when  we 
climb  one  of  its  more  prominent  heights  and 
look  down  upon  many  square  miles  of  its 
extent.  The  whole  landscape  is  one  of 
smoothed  and  rounded  bosses  and  ridges  of 
bare  rock,  which,  uniting  and  then  separat- 
ing, inclose  innumerable  little  tarns.  There 
are  no  definite  lines  of  hill  and  valley  ;  the 
country  consists,  in  fact,  of  a  seemingly  in- 
extricable labyrinth  of  hills  and  valleys,  which, 
on  the  whole,  do  not  rise  much  above,  nor 
sink  much  below,  a  general  average  level. 
Over  this  expanse,  with  all  its  bareness  and 
sterility,  there  is  a  singular  absence  of  peaks 
or  crags  of  any  kind.  The  domes  and  ridges 
present  everywhere  a  rounded,  flowing  out- 
line, though  here  and  there  this  outline  has 
been  partially  defaced  by  the  action  of  the 
weather. 

The  rocks  that  have  assumed  this  external 
contour  are  the  Archaean,  Fundamental, 
Lewisian, .  or  Laurentian  gneiss,  which,  as 
Murchison  showed,  form  the  platform  where- 
on the  rest  of  the  stratified  rocks  of  Britain 
lie.  They  do  not,  however,  cover  the  whole 
surface  of  these  northwestern  tracts.  On  the 
contrary,  they  form  a  broken  fringe  from 
Cape  Wrath  to  the  Island  of  Raasay,  coming 
out  boldly  to  the  Atlantic  in  the  northern  half 
of  its  course,  but  throughout  the  southern 
portion  retiring  chiefly  toward  the  heads  of 
the  bays  and  sea-lochs,  and  even  extending 
inland  to  the  head  of  Loch  Maree.  The 
reason  of  this  want  of  continuity  is  to  be 
found  in  the  spread  of  later  formations  over 
the  gneiss.  At  the  ba--e  of  these  over- 
lying deposits  comes  a  mass  of  dark 
red  standstone  and  conglomerate  (classed 
as  Cambrian  by  Murchison  and  his  as- 
sociates), which,  in  gently-inclined  or  hori- 
zontal strata,  sweeps  across  the  platform  of 
gneiss.rising  here  and  there  into  solitary  cones 
or  groups  of  cones  fully  3,400  feet  above 
the  sea.  No  contrast  in  Highland  scenery 
is  more  abrupt  and  impressive  than  that 
between  the  ground  occupied  by  the 
old  gneiss  and  that  covered  by  this 
overlying  sandstone  group.  So  sharp  is 
the  line  of  demarkation  between  the  two 
tracts  that  it  can*  be  accurately  followed 
by  the  eye  even  at  a  distance  of  several  miles. 
Where  the  sandstone  supervenes,  the  tumbled 
sea  of  bare  gray  gneiss  is  succeeded  by  smooth 
heathy  slopes,  through  which  the  flat  or 
gently-inclined  parallel  edges  of  the  beds  pro- 
trude in  successive  lines  of  terrace.  As  the 
ground  rises  into  conical  mountains,  the  cov- 


ering of  heather  grows  more  and  more  scant, 
but  the  same  terraced  bars  of  rock  continue 
to  rise  even  to  the  summits,  so  that  these  vast 
solitary  cones,  standing  apart  on  their  plat- 
form of  gneiss,  have  rather  the  aspect  of 
rudely  symmetrical  pyramids  than  the  free, 
bold  sweep  of  crag  and  slope  so  characteristic 
of  other  Scottish  mountains. 

The  depth  of  these  sandstones  must  amount 
to  several  thousand  feet.  Even  in  single 
mountains,  a  thickness  of  more  than  three 
thousand  four  hundred  feet  can  be  taken  in 
at  a  glance  of  the  eye  from  base  to  summit. 
Yet  when  this  massive  formation  is  followed 
along  the  belt  of  country  in  which  it  lies  it  is 
found  to  thin  out  rapidly  and  even  for  some 
distance  to  disappear.  Such  a  disappearance 
might  arise  either  because  the  sandstone  was 
not  continuously  deposited,  or  more  probably 
because  it  was  unequally  worn  down  before 
the  next  group  was  accumulated  upon  it. 
Evidently  the  solution  of  this  question  has  an 
important  bearing  on  any  reconstruction  of 
the  early  geography  of  the  region. 

Above  the  red  sandstones  and  creeping 
transgressively  across  them  lies  the  deep  pile 
of  white  quartzites,  limestones,  and  schists, 
which  Mr.  C.  W.  F-each's  discovery  of  recog- 
nizable fossils  in  them  at  Durness  showed  to 
be  of  Lower  Silurian  age.  Another  well- 
marked  contrast  of  scenery  is  presented  where 
these  rocks  abut  upon  those  just  described. 
The  quartzites  rise  into  long  lines  of  bare 
white  hills  which,  as  the  rock  breaks  up  under 
the  influence  of  the  weather,  are  apt  to  be 
buried  under  their  own  ddbris  even  up  to  the 
summits.  Here  and  there,  outlying  patches 
of  the  white  rock  maybe  seen  gleaming  along 
the  crests  of  the  dark  sandstone  mountains, 
like  fields  of  snow  or  nascent  glaciers. 
Quartzites,  limestones,  and  schists  dip  away 
to  the  east  and  pass  under  the  vast  series  of 
younger  schists  which  form  most  of  the  rest 
of  the  Scottish  Highlands.  This  order  of 
succession,  first  established  by  Murchison, 
can  be  demonstrated  by  innumerable  lines  of 
natural  section.  I  have  myself  traced  it 
through  the  mountainous  country  from  Cape 
Wrath  to  Skye,  and  in  many  traverses  across 
Sutherland  and  Ross.  I  have  sought  for  evi- 
dence of  the  reappearance  of  the  old  or  fun- 
damental gneiss  of  the  northwest,  and  have 
ransacked  every  Highland  county  in  the 
search,  but  have  never  found  the  least  trace 
of  that  rock  beyond  its  limits  in  Sutherland 
and  Ross.  Its  distinctive  gneisses  and  other 
crystalline  masses,  so  wonderfully  unlike  any- 
:hing  else  in  the  Highlands,  never  reappear 
o  the  east.  And  that  strange  mammillated, 
aossy  surface  is  found  in  the  northwest  alone. 
To  realize  what  the  appearance  of  the  old 
gneiss  at  the  present  surface  involves  we 
must  bear  in  mind  that  it  was  first  buried 
under  several  thousand  feet  of  red  sandstone, 
:hat  the  area  was  then  further  submerged  un- 
til the  vast  pile  of  sediment  was  deposited 
out  of  which  the  Highlands  have  betn 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


formed,  that  these  sedimentary  accumulations 
— how  many  thousand  feet  thick  we  cannot 
yet  tell — were  subsequently  over  the  High- 
land area  crumpled  and  metamorphosed  into 
crystalline  schists,  and  that  finally  toward 
the  west  the  ancient  platform  of  gneiss  was 
once  more  ridged  up  and  gradually  bared  of 
its  superincumbent  load  of  rock,  until  now  at 
length  some  portions  of  it  have  been  once 
more  laid  open  to  the  air. 

There  is  thus  a  special  historical  interest 
in  this  fragment  of  the  old  gneiss  country. 
It  is  a  portion  of  the  earliest  European  sur- 
face of  which  as  yet  we  know  anything — a 
surface  in  cnronological  comparison  with 
•which  the  Alps  are  of  quite  modern  date. 
For  many  years  past  I  have  at  intervals 
wandered  over  it,  finding  in  its  undulations 
of  bare  rock  a  fascination  which  a  fairer 
landscape  might  fail  to  exert.  Each  visit 
suggests  some  fresh  problem,  if  it  does  not 
cast  light  on  earlier  difficulties.  One  of  the 
questions  which  must  particularly  engage 
the  attention  of  every  observant  traveler  in 
Western  Sutherland  and  Ross  is  the  origin 
of  that  extraordinary  contour  presented  by 
the  gneiss.  A  very  slight  examination  shows 
that  every  dome  and  boss  of  rock  is  ice- worn. 
The  smoothed,  polished,  and  striated  surface 
left  by  the  ice  of  the  glacial  period  is  every- 
where to  be  recognized.  Each  hummock  of 
gneiss  is  a  more  or  less  perfect  roche  moutonnfr. 
Perched  blocks  are  strewn  over  the  ground 
by  thousands.  In  short,  there  can  hardly  be 
anywhere  else  in  Britain  a  more  thoroughly 
typical  piece  of  glaciation. 

An  obvious  answer  to  the  question  of 
the  origin  of  the  peculiar  configuration 
of  this  gneiss  country  is  to  refer  it 
to  the  action  of  the  last  ice-sheet  whic*i 
covered  Britain.  That  the  gneiss  was  power- 
fully ground  down  by  that  ice  is  suffi- 
ciently manifest.  But  if  the  peculiar  bossy 
surface  is  to  be  thus  explained  we  are  c  n- 
fronted  by  the  difficulty  that  the  ice  must 
have  acted  far  more  effectively  on  the  gneiss 
than  on  any  other  rock  in  the  region.  Yet 
there  is  nothing  either  in  the  structure  of  the 
rocks  or  in  the  configuration  of  the  ground 
to  make  the  erosion  greater  on  the  gneiss 
than  on  the  red  sandstone  or  quartzites  and 
schists.  The  same  side  of  a  sea-loch  may  be 
seen  to  present  slopes  both  of  gneiss  and 
sandstone ;  the  gneiss  is  always  worn  into 
smooth  domes,  ridges,  and  hollows  ;  but  the 
sandstone  retains  its  parallel  bands  of  rocky 
terrace.  The  difference  is  evidently  not  due 
to  any  recent  greater  glacial  abrasion  of  the 
gneiss.  The  area  of  high  ground  above  the 
gneiss  platform  in  Sutherlandshire  is  com- 
paratively small.  It  rises  somewhat  steeply 
from  the  west,  its  chief  area  and  drainage 
lying  toward  the  east.  I  have  visited  those 
tracts  of  the  Highlands  where  the  rocks  ap- 
proach nearest  to  the  type  of  the  ancient 
gneiss,  and  where  the  conditions  have  been 
most  favorable  for  intense  glaciation.  No 


more  promising  locality  for  a  comparison  of 
this  kind  could  be  found  than  the  deep  defiles 
of  Glen  Shiel  and  Kintail.  The  rocks  have 
there  been  extremely  metamorphosed,  and 
have  been  exposed  to  the  action  of  ice  de 
scending  from  some  of  the  highest  uplands 
in  the  West  of  Scotland.  Yet  we  look  in 
vain  among  them  for  any  semblance  of  the 
bare  bossy  surface  of  the  old  gneiss. 

A  further  difficulty  arises  when  we  reflect 
that  in  the  general  erosion  of  the  country 
the  gneiss,  being  covered  by  later  forma- 
tions, would  be  the  last  to  be  attacked,  and 
in  so  far  as  it  was  so  covered,  must  have 
been  exposed  to  the  erosive  action  of  the  ice 
for  a  shorter  time  than  the  overlying  rocks. 
We  might  therefore  have  presumed  that  in- 
stead of  being  more,  it  would  have  been  less 
trenchantly  worn  down  than  these.  Its 
great  toughness  and  durability,  which  have 
enabled  it  to  retain  the  ice  impress  so  faith- 
fully, must  have  given  it  considerable  powers 
of  resistance  to  the  grinding  action  of  the 
glacier. 

Every  fresh  excursion  into  these  northern 
wilds  has  increased  my  difficulty  in  account- 
ing for  the  peculiar  contours  of  the  gneiss 
ground  by  reference  merely  to  the  work  of  the 
Glacial  Period.  A  recent  visit,  however, 
seems  at  last  to  have  thrown  some  light  on 
the  matter.  I  had  long  been  familiar  with 
the  fact  that  the  platform  of  gneiss  on  which 
the  red  sandstone  and  conglomerates  we-e 
laid  down  abounded  in  inequalities  even  at 
the  time  of  the  deposit  of  these  strata.  Its 
uneven  surface  rose  here  and  there  into  high 
ridges  and  cones,  of  which  Stack  is  a  dimin- 
ished representative,  and  sank  into  depres- 
sions now  occupied  by  thick  masses  of  sand- 
stone. But  I  have  lately  observed  that  not 
only  do  these  larger  features  pass  under  the 
sardstone,  but  that  the  minor  domes  and 
I  bosses  of  gneiss  do  so  likewise.  On  both 
I  sides  of  Loch  Torridon,  for  example,  the 
I  hummocky  outlines  of  the  gneiss  can  be  seen 
i  emerging  from  under  the  overlying  sand- 
:  stones.  On  the  side  west  of  Loch  Assynt 
similar  junctions  are  visible.  But  some  of 
the  most  impressive  sections  occur  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Gairloch.  Little  more  than 
a  mile  to  the  north  of  the  church  the  road 
to  Poolewe  descends  into  a  short  valley  sur- 
rounded with  gneiss  hills.  From  the  top  of 
the  descent  the  eye  is  at  once  arrested  by  a 
flat-  topped  hill  standing  in  the  middle  of  the 
valley  at  its  upper  end,  and  suggesting  some 
kind  of  fortification;  so  different  from  th« 
surrounding  hummocky  declivities  of  gneist 
is  its  level  grassy  top,  flanked  by  wall-like 
cliffs  rising  upon  a  glacis-slope  of  dfbris  and 
herbage.  Closer  examination  shows  that 
the  little  eminence  is  capped  with  a  coarse 
reddish  breccia  mode  up  of  fragments  from 
the  surrounding  gneiss.  The  stones  in  this 
deposit  are  for  the  most  part  perfectly  angu- 
I  lar,  and  are  sometimes  stuck  on  end  in 
the  mass.  They  underwent  but  little  re- 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


arrangement  after  they  were  thrown  down, 
though  occasional  lenticular  seams  of  red 
sandstone  running  through  the  rock  serve 
prove  that  it  is  lying  as  a  flat  cake  on  the 
gneiss.  My  friend  Mr.  Norman  Lockyer 
accompanied  me  in  the  examination  of  this 
hill.  We  searched  long  for  a  striated  stone 
among  the  component  materials  of  the  brec- 
cia, but  the  matrix  was  too  firm  to  allow  us 
to  bare  and  extract  any  of  the  pebbles  or 
boulders.  We  traced,  however,  tne  charac- 
teristic rounded  bossy  surface  of  the  gneiss 
until  it  passed  under  the  breccia,  and  were 
convinced  that,  could  the  outlier  of  breccia 
be  stripped  off,  the  same  kind  of  surface 
would  be  found  below  it  as  on  the  gneiss 
above  and  around.  The  valley  containing 
this  little  fragment  of  a  once  more  extensive 
deposit  of  breccia  certainly  existed  as  a  hol- 
low in  Cambrian  times.  From  the  narrow- 
ness of  its  present  outlet,  which  has  been 
cut  by  the  escaping  streamlet,  and  from  the 
nature  of  the  breccia,  we  may  infer  with 
some  plausibility  that  the  hollow  was  filleJ 
with  water,  and  may  have  been  a  1  ike.  It 
was  almost  certainly  a  rock-basin,  surround- 
ed with  hills  of  gneiss  that  had  been  worn 
into  undulating  dome-shaped  hummocks. 

Behind  the  new  hotel  at  Gairloch  the 
ground  rises  steeply  into  a  rocky  bank  of  the 
old  gneiss.  Along  the  base  of  these  slope 
the  gneiss  (which  is  here  a  greenish  schist)  is 
wrapped  round  with  a  breccia  of  remarkable 
coarseness  and  toughness.  We  noticed  some 
blocks  in  it  fully  five  feet  long.  It  is  entirely 
made  up  of  angular  fragments  of  the  schist 
underneath,  to  which  it  adheres  with  great 
tenacity.  Here  aga;n  rounded  and  smoothed 
domes  of  the  older  rock  can  be  traced  passing 
under  the  breccia.  On  the  coast  immediately 
to  the  south  of  the  new  Free  Church  a  series 
ef  instructive  sections  lays  bare  the  worn  un- 
dulating platform  of  gneiss,  with  it  -  overlying 
cover  of  coarse  angular  breccia.  Similar  evi- 
dence occurs  to  the  north  of  Loch  Inver. 

On  these  far  northern  shores,  then,  there 
gtill  remain  fragments  of  the  surface  on  which 
our  oldest  sedimentary  accumulations  were 
deposited.  These  fragments  are  found  to 
oear  in  their  smooth  hummocky  contours  a 
Striking  resemblance  to  the  surface  which 
geologists  now  always  associate  with  the 
action  of  the  glacier-ice.  There  can  at  least 
oe  no  doubt  that  they  are  denuded  surfaces. 
The  edges  of  the  vertical  and  twisted  beds  of 
gneiss  and  schist  have  been  smoothly  beveled 
off.  These  rocks,  however,  would  never  have 
assumed  such  a  contour  if  exposed  merely  to 
ordinary  sub-aerial  disintegration.  They 
would  have  taken  sharp  craggy  outlines  like 
those  which  are  here  and  there  gradually  re- 
placing the  ice-worn  curves  of  the  roches  mou- 
tanntes.  They  have  certainly  been  ground 
by  an  agent  that  has  produced  results  which, 
if  they  were  found  in  a  recent  formation, 
•would,  without  hesitation,  be  ascribed  to 
land-ice.  The  breccia,  too,  is  quite  compar- 


able to  moraine  stuff.  Without  wishing  at 
present  to  prejudge  a  question  on  which  I 
hope  yet  to  obtain  further  evidence,  I  think 
we  have  in  the  meantime  grounds  for  con- 
cluding that  in  the  northwest  of  Scotland 
there  is  still  traceable  a  fragment  of  the 
earliest  known  land-surface  of  Europe  ;  that 
this  primeval  country  had  a  smooth  undulating 
aspect  not  unlike  that  of  the  west  of  Suther- 
land at  the  present  time  ;  that  it  contained 
rock-hollows,  some  of  them  filled  with  water; 
that  into  these  hollows  piles  of  coarse  angular 
detritus  were  thrust;  that  around  and  beneath 
the  tracts  where  this  detritus  accumulated  the 
gneiss  was  worn  into  dome-shaped  forms 
strongly  suggestive  of  the  operation  of  land* 
ice;  and  that  though  the  ice  of  the  last  Glacial 
Period  undoubtedly  ground  down  the  plat- 
form of  gneiss,  bared  as  it  was  of  the  over- 
lying formations,  it  found  a  surface  already 
worn  into  approximately  the  same  forms  as 
those  which  it  presents  to-day. 


II. 
IN  WYOMING. 

Twenty-four  hours  after  landing  in  New 
York  my  preparations  for  a  journey  to  the 
Far  West  were  completed,  and  I  found  myself 
'ooking  out  from  the  windows  of  a  Pullman 
car  that  rapidly  swept  past  the  blue  reaches 
of  the  Hudson.  A  project  which  had  been 
little  more  than  a  dream  for  many  years  was 
now  at  last  actually  realized.  Let  me  briefly 
explain  this  project,  that  the  purport  of  the 
journey,  and  of  the  following  notes,  may  be 
understood. 

And  first  I  would  give  the  reader  due 
warning  that  the  object  of  the  expedition  was 
not  sport  or  adventure,  but  science.  My 
companion  and  I  were  not,  indeed,  wholly 
unarmed.  To  go  without  at  least  revolvers 
into  these  western  wildernesses  would,  we 
were  told,  be  sheer  folly.  My  weapon  disap- 
peared, however,  in  an  early  part  of  our  trav- 
els, but  my  friend's  did  occasional  service 
upon  a  badger  or  prairie  hen.  All  the  sport 
that  was  done  consisted  in  the  slaughter  of 
the  antelope  or  elk  that  was  needed  for  food. 
Nevertheless,  from  first  to  last,  the  journey 
was  full  of  interest,  and,  in  a  quiet  way, 
even  of  excitement.  We  had  game  of  our 
own  to  hunt,  and  we  pursued  it  with  such 
measure  of  success  as  at  least  amply  to  justify 
our  own  expectations,  and  to  reward  us  for 
the  enterprise. 

Everybody  now  knows  the  kind  of  evidence 
from  which  it  has  been  established  that  the 
present  surface  of  the  dry  land  has  once 
been  in  a  wholly  different  condition.  In  all 
parts  of  the  world  this  evidence  obtrudes  it- 
self, often  so  conspicuously  as  from  earliest 
times  to  have  arrested  the  attention  of  man- 
kind, and  to  have  suggested,  or  at  least 
colored,  mythology  and  local  superstition. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


In  many  places,  for  example,  as  soon  as  the 
layer  of  soil  or  subsoil  has  been  removed,  the 
rock  below,  with  its  embedded  shells  or  cor- 
als, or  other  remains  of  marine  life,  is  at 
once  seen  to  have  been  the  bottom  of  the 
sea.  At  other  points  we  find  traces  of  riv- 
ers which  must  have  had  their  sources  in  the 
mountains  that  have  long  since  disappeared, 
and  which  fed  lakes  or  watered  woodlands 
and  plains  that  for  ages  have  been  buried 
out  of  sight.  Or,  again,  we  come  upon  the 
earth  and  stones  left  by  vanished  glaciers, 
upon  the  limestone  spread  out  by  the  springs 
long  ago  dried  up,  upon  the  sheets  of  lava  or 
heaps  of  ashes  thrown  out  by  volcanoes  that 
have  been  extinct  and  effaced  for  ages  It  is 
manifest,  therefore,  that  the  present  surface 
of  the  land,  so  far  from  being  aboriginal,  is 
only  the  latest  phase  of  a  long  succession  of 
geographical  revolutions,  the  uppermost  leaf, 
as  it  were,  of  a  series  of  volumes  that  lie  be- 
neath it.  Mountains  and  hills,  valleys  and 
plains,  instead  of  standing  out  as  parts  of  the 
primeval  architecture  of  the  globe,  can  be 
shown  to  belong  to  many  different  epochs  of 
the  earth's  long  history. 

But  the  question  remains,  how  these  fa- 
miliar features  have  come  to  be  impressed  on 
the  surface  of  the  land.  Granted  that  the 
solid  materials  out  of  which  a  mountain  or 
table-land  has  been  built  were  originally  ac- 
cumulated as  sediment  on  the  floor  of  the  sea, 
how  has  this  hardened  sediment  been  fash- 
ioned into  the  well-known  lineaments  of 
the  land  ?  The  solution  of  this  question 
aroused  some  years  ago  a  keen  discussion, and 
has  given  rise  to  a  portentous  mass  of  geolo- 
gical literature.  The  combatants,  as  in  most 
warfares,  scientific  or  other,  ranged  them- 
selves into  two  camps.  There  were  the  Con- 
vulsionists,  or  believers  in  the  paramount  ef- 
ficacy of  subterranean  movement,  who, 
starting  from  the  universally  admitted  proofs 
of  upheaval,  crumpling,  and  fracture,  sought 
an  explanation  of  the  present  inequalities  of 
the  land  in  unequal  disturbance  from  below. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  were  the  Erosion- 
ists,  or  upholders  of  the  efficacy  of  superfi- 
cial waste,  who  maintained  that  besides  the 
elevations  due  to  the  subterranean  causes, 
mountains,  valleys,  and  all  the  other  features 
of  a  landscape,  have  been  gradually  carved 
into  their  present  shapes  by  the  slow  abrasion  j 
of  the  air,  rain,  rivers,  frosts,  and  the  other 
agents  of  sub-aerial  eros'on.  The  contest, 
which  was  keen  enough  so  ne  years  ago,  has 
for  a  while  almost  ceased  among  us,  though 
an  occasional  shot  from  younger  combatants, 
fired  with  the  old  enthusiasm,  serves  to  keep 
alive  the  memory  of  the  campaign. 

Having  long  ago  attached  myself  to  the 
camp  of  the  Erosionists,  though  by  no  means 
inclined  to  do  battle  under  the  extreme 
"  quietest "  banners  of  some  of  it  champions, 
I  have  been  led,  in  the  course  of  my  wander- 
ings over  Britain  and  the  Continent,  to 
look  at  scenery  with  a  peculiar  interest.  I 


have  long  been  convinced,  however,  that  for 
the  proper  discussion  of  the  real  efficacy  of 
superficial  erosion  in  the  .development  of  a 
terrestrial  surface,  the  geologists  of  Europe 
have  been  at  great  disadvantage.  The  rocks 
in  these  regions  have  undoubtedly  been  sub- 
jected to  so  many  changes — squeezed,  crum- 
pled, fractured,  upheaved,  and  depressed — ' 
that  the  effects  of  unequal  erosion  upon  their 
surface  have  been  masked  by  those  of  subter- 
ranean disturbance.  The  problem  has  thus 
become  much  more  complicated  than  with 
simpler  geological  structure  it  would  have 
been.  Its  solution  has  demanded  an  amount 
of  knowledge  of  geological  structure  which 
can  hardly  be  acquired  without  long  and  la- 
borious training,  the  want  of  which  on  the 
part  of  many  who  have  taken  part  in  the  con- 
troversy has  led  to  the  calling  in  question  or 
denial  of  facts,  about  the  reality  and  mean- 
ing of  which  there  never  has  been  any 
doubt  at  all  That  in  spite  of  these  obstacles, 
observers  in  this  country  should  have  been 
able  to  brush  aside  the  accidental  or  adven- 
titious difficulties  and  get  at  the  real  gist  of 
the  matter,  as  I  am  certain  they  have  done, 
seems  to  me  a  lasting  proof  of  their  scientific 
prowess. 

Now,  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  had  the 
birthplace  of  geology  lain  on  the  west  side  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  this  controversy  would 
never  have  arisen.  The  efficacy  of  denuda- 
tion, instead  of  evoking  doubt,  discussion  or 
denial,  would  have  been  one  of  the  first  ob- 
vious principles  of  the  science,  established  on 
the  most  irrefragable  basis  of  patent  and  most 
impressive  facts.  Over  thousands  of  square 
miles  in  that  region  the  strata  remain  practi- 
cally unchanged  from  their  original  horizontal 
position,  so  that  the  effects  of  surface  erosion 
can  at  once  be  detected  upon  their  flat  parallel 
layers.  The  country  has  not  been  under  the 
sea  for  avast  succession  of  geological  periods. 
It  has  not  been  buried,  like  so  much  of  North- 
ern Europe  and  Northeastern  America,  under 
a  thick  cover  of  ice-born  clays  and  gravels. 
Its  level  platforms  of  sandstone,  shale,  clay, 
or  limestone  lie  at  the  surface,  bare  to  the 
wind  and  rain,  and  their  lines  can  be  followed 
mile  after  mile,  as  if  the  whole  region  were 
one  vast  geological  model  to  which  the  world 
should  come  to  learn  the  fundamental  laws  of 
denuuation. 

For  the  exploration  of  these  western  terri- 
tories the  enlightened  enterprise  of  various 
departments  under  the  American  Government 
has  already  done  a  great  deal.  During  the 
last  ten  or'  fifteen  years  various  surveys  of 
different  portions  of  the  region  have  been 
carried  on,  and  a  voluminous  series  of  maps 
and  reports  has  been  issued  embodying  the 
results  of  the  explorations.  Through  the  cour- 
teous liberality  of  these  departments,  for 
which  on  all  occasions  I  am  anxious  to  ex- 
press my  gratitude  and  admiration,  I  had  re- 
ceived copies  of  most  of  their  publications. 
The  descriptions  of  King,  Hayden,  Powell, 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


Gilbert,  Button,  Emmons,  Hague,  Marvine, 
Endlich  and  others,  and  the  remarkable  draw- 
ings of  Holmes,  had  made  me  in  some  re- 
spects familiar  with  the  general  aspects  of 
the  scenery  and  geological  structure  of  the 
region.  From  these  works  it  was  evident 
that  questions  over  which  we  had  been  fight- 
ing so  long  in  Europe  were  finally  settled  by 
Nature  herself  in  America,  after  a  fashion 
admitting  of  no  more  cavil.  It  was  well  worth 
while  to  make  a  journey  to  the  Far  West  to 
see  with  one's  own  eyes  the  demonstration  for 
which  one  had  longed  on  this  side  of  the  At- 
lantic. And  this  was  what  I  now  had  deter- 
mined to  do,  with  the  companionship  of  an 
old  friend  of  kindred  tastes,  Mr.  Henry 
Drummond,  of  the  New  College,  Glasgow, 
who  from  first  to  last  shared  in  the  work  and 
smoothed  the  little  privations  of  the  journey. 

Of  the  traveling  westward,  now  made  so 
familiar  and  comparatively  easy  by  the  various 
rival  railroad  companies,  little  need  be  said 
here.  There  is  an  early  and  late  feature  of  it, 
however,  to  which  reference  may  be  made, 
partly  in  the  hope  that  every  renewed  protest 
against  an  abuse,  as  offensive  to  many  of  our 
cousins  on  the  other  side  as  to  a  visitor  from 
the  old  country,  may  help  toward  its  ultimate 
suppression.  Hardly  is  the  traveler  out  of 
New  York  when  he  notices  that  every  natural 
rock,  islet,  or  surface  of  any  kind  that  will 
hold  paint  is  disfigured  with  advertisements 
in  huge  letters.  The  ice- worn  bosses  of  gneiss 
which,  rising  out  of  the  Hudson,  would  in 
themselves  be  such  attractive  objects  in  the 
landscape,  are  rendered  hideous  by  being 
made  the  groundwork  on  which  some  kind  of 
tobacco,  or  tooth  wash,  or  stove-polish,  is 
recommended  to  the  notice  of  the  multitude. 
All  the  way  west  to  the  Pacific  along  the  rail- 
way route  the  same  barbarous  practice  has 
been  employed,  with  an  ingenuity  and  perse- 
verance worthy  of  a  better  cause.  Some  of 
the  most  picturesque  canons  on  the  route 
have  had  their  walls  turned  into  advertising 
boards — for  the  spoilers  have  traveled  with 
ladders  as  well  as  paint  pots,  and  have  care- 
fully inscribed  their  wares  on  precipices  which 
would  ordinarily  be  inaccessible.  Oil  paint 
lasts  for  many  years;  so  that  even  if  the  sac- 
rilege be  soon  suppressed  it  will  be  long  be- 
fore the  record  of  it  has  wholly  disappeared. 

Not  many  years  ago,  Chicago  lay  at  the 
extreme  verge  of  advancing  civilization  One 
who  had  been  so  far  west  could  boast  that  he 
had  reached  the  limit  of  settlements,  and  had 
looked  on  the  great  plains  haunted  by  wild 
red  men  and  buffaloes.  Now,  however,  the 
network  of  railways  h  s  spread  far  beyond 
Chicago,  which  has  become  one  of  the  chief 
marts  of  the  Union,  having  free  communica- 
tion alike  by  water  and  land  with  the  eastern 
seaboard  of  the  continent.  I  was  making 
some  such  natural  reflections  as  the  train 
slowed  in  approaching  Chicago  station,  when 
a  noise  as  of  broken  glass  came  from  the 
other  unoccupied  end  of  the  car.  The  crash 


was  loud  enough  to  startle  everybody  for  a 
moment,  but  the  conversation  and  packing 
up  of  bags  were  immediately  resumed  On 
going  to  the  spot,  I  found  that  two  window- 
panes  of  the  car  had  been  pierced  at  about 
the  same  height  by  two  successive  bullets 
from  a  revolver.  One  of  the  balls  had  made 
a  clean,  sharp  hole  in  the  plate -glass,  and 
would  no  doubt  have  continued  its  journey 
through  the  body  of  any  unfortunate  occu- 
pant of  the  seat.  This  was  our  first  expe- 
rience of  "  Western  Life."  We  looked  next 
morning  in  the  papers  for  an  account  of  the 
"  outrage,"  as  it  would  have  been  termed  by 
our  penny-a-liners  at  home.  It  was  not  men- 
tioned at  all.  We  found,  however,  records 
of  so  many  successful  shootings  that  the  non- 
insertion  of  our  episode  was  easily  to  be  ex- 
plained, he  incident  impressed  me  with  a 
sense  of  recklessness  in  the  use  of  firearms 
and  disregard  of  life — an  impression  that  was 
not  effaced  by  the  rest  of  the  journey. 

We  crossed  the  Mississippi  at  night,  and 
having  some  time  to  wait  at  the  Quincy 
Junction,  walked  down  to  the  banks  of  the 
river  and  reverently  dipped  our  hands  in  the 
great  ' '  Father  of  Waters. "  Lights  gleamed 
from  the  farther  side,  heightening  the  effect 
of  vastness  and  mystery.  Behind  us,  too, 
gleamed  the  much  brighter  lights  of  rival 
drinking  saloons,  from  which,  before  resum- 
ing the  journey,  we  were  enabled  to  enlarge 
our  rapidly-growing  vocabulary  of  American 
drinks. 

The  Missouri  River  at  Kansas  City  is  the 
muddiest,  most  tumultuous  flood  of  rolling 
water  I  ever  saw.  Yet  it  was  now  the  month 
of  August,  and  there  had  been  a  long  course 
of  previous  dry  weather.  The  train  carried 
us  slowly  across  a  creaking  wooden  bridge 
over  the  boiling  sea  below,  past  some  cliffs 
of  old  alluvium,  into  a  station  full  of  negroes, 
of  whom  there  had  been  a  large  influx  from 
the  South  in  seach  of  a  proposed  settlement 
in  Kansas.  There  being  now  some  kind  of 
picnic  or  holiday  afoot,  they  were  a  merry, 
noisy  crowd,  dressed  out  and  bedizened  as 
only  niggers  can  be.  One  seldom  realizes 
what  an  extraordinary  variety  of  tint  there 
may  be  in  a  colored  population  Some  of 
the  excursionists  were  of  the  most  perfect 
coalblack  shade,  from  which  every  gradation 
could  be  noted  till  the  crisp  hair  and  charac- 
teristic features  remained  as  almost  the  only 
traces  of  negro  blood.  Westward  still, 
through  endless  monotonous  miles  of  maize 
and  yet  unbroken  land,  the  train  moved 
wearily  hour  after  hour,  until  on  getting  up 
in  the  morning  we  found  ourselves  unmis- 
takably on  the  great  prairie  at  last.  Perhaps 
no  type  of  scenery  so  closely  fulfils  a  previous 
mental  picture  of  it  as  the  western  prairie  of 
North  America.  Seen  after  a  hot  summer, 
it  spreads  out  as  a  vast,  treeless,  arid  ex- 
panse, covered  with  a  short  and  sparse  grass, 
which,  though  green  and  flowery  in  spring, 
becomes  parched  hy  drought  into  a  kind  of 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


creased  interest  on  the  homeward  journey. 
At  last,  on  the  far  western  horizon  the  first 
summits  on  the  Rocky  Mountains  rose  like 
blue  islets  out  of  the  sea.  Hour  after  hour, 
as  the  train  ground  its  dusty  way  over  the 
plain,  these  islets  rose  higher,  till  at  last  they 


united  into  the  long 


;e  nigl 
noble 


range  of  the  snow- 


hay,  through  which  the  baked  soil  everywhere 
peeps.  For  hundreds  of  miles  together  the 
undulations  never  rise  into  hills  nor  sink  into 
valleys.  A  sluggish  streamlet,  depressed  a 
few  feet  or  yards  beneath  the  general  level, 
winds  here  and  there  in  lazy  curves  till  it 
joins  some  sluggish  and  muddy  tributary  of 
the  Missouri,  that  creeps  along  a  level  plain 
bounded  by  low  bluffs.  But  ere  autumn 
comes  many  of  these  watercourses  have  been 
reduced  to  groups  of  stagnant  pools. 

At  proper  intervals  stations  have  been 
built  with  means  for  supplying  the  engines 
with  water  and  fuel.  It  was  at  one  of  these 
halting-places  that  we  were  able  to  set  foot 
for  the  first  time  on  the  prairie.  The  brief 
halt  enabled  us  to  make  some  observations 
that  served  materially  to  beguile  the  tedium 
of  this  railway  journey,  and  to  invest  the  fea- 
tureless prairie  with  a  new  interest.  Every 
traveler  across  the  continent  has  remarked 
the  incredible  number  of  ant-hills  and  bur- 
rows of  the  prairie  dog  and  gopher  by  which 
the  flat  bare  surface  of  the  plains  is  marked. 
The  ground  appears  to  be  in  a  constant  state  of 
cutaneous  eruption.  So  leisurely  does  the 
train  move  along,  however,  and  so  seldom 
does  it  halt,  that  for  some  hours  after  day- 
light we  sat  looking  on  this  singular  scene 
before  an  opportunity  came  of  getting  down 

to  have  a  closer  view  of  it.     We  noticed  that  I  sharp  and  sudden  is  the   bend  that  it  would 
though  the  general   color  of  the  soil  is  a  dirty   hardly   be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  you 
yellowish  gray  or  drab,  the  ant  hills   have  a  |  might  sit  on  the  flat  beds  and  lean  your  back 
somewhat   pinkish    tint.     Our   first  halt  re-    on  the  vertical  ones.     From  some  points  of 
vealed  the  curious  fact  that  this   difference      ' 
arises  from  the  choice  which  the  ants  make 
of   their   building   materials.     With   infinite 


streaked  Colorado  Alps,  with  Pike's  Peak, 
Long's  Peak,  and  a  host  of  other  broad- 
based  cones  towering  far  up  into  the  clear 
air. 

Though  it  was  no  part  of  our  programme 
to  linger  among  these  mountains,  we  gladly 
availed  ourselves  of  the  opportunity  of  mak- 
ing an  excursion  into  them  in  passing.  The 
first  few  hours  showed  us  on  what  a  different 
plan  these  mountains  had  been  constructed 
from  that  which  is  more  familiar  in  the  Old 
World.  Approaching  the  Alps,  for  instance, 
you  cross  a  succession  of  parallel  minor 
ranges,  or  foot-hills,  like  the  Jura,  which 
flank  the  more  colossal  ramparts  behind  them. 
But  these  Colorado  Mountains  tower  straight 
out  of  the  plain.  For  hundreds  of  miles  to 
the  east  the  Cretaceous  or  Tertiary  strata 
underlying  the  prairie  seem  to  be  nearly  flat 
or  only  very  slightly  undulating,  though 
there  is  a  steady  rise  of  the  ground  west- 
ward. But  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains  they 
are  at  once  abruptly  pitched  up  on  end.  So 


stals  of  flesh-colored  fel< 
strewed  there.     The  roc 


ing1 

jick 

of  the  prairie  the  small  broken  cry- 
Idspar  that  are  sparsely 
•ocks  underneath  are 
various  sandstones,  clays,  and  limestones,  the 
decomposition  of  which  could  never  have  fur- 
nished this  feldspar  detritus.  I  examined  a 
good  many  ant-hills,  and  found  the  same 
kind  of  fragments  on  all  of  them.  The 
feldspar  grains  were  most  abundant.but  there 
occurred  also  small  pieces  of  quartz  and  other 


w  the  solid  sheets  of  rock  made  a  magnifi- 
cent curve  from  the  plains  up  into  the  line  of 
serrated  crags  which  their  broken  edges 
present  against  the  sky.  The  meaning  of 
this' structure  is  soon  apparent  when  the  trav- 
eler ascends  one  of  the  numerous  deep 
gorges  or  canons  into  which  the  flanks  of  the 
mountains  have  been  trenched  by  the  erosion 
of  the  escaping  drainage.  In  the  course  of 
a  brief  space  he  finds  that  he  has  crossed  the 
uptilted  formations  and  has  reached  the 
ancient  granitic  and  crystalline  rocks,  which 
have  been  driven  up  like  a  huge  wedge 
through  the  younger  strata  of  the  prairies, 


minerals  of  crystalline  rocks,  and  here  and  j  and  now  form  the  axis  of  the  Colorado 
there  some  black  glistening  specks  of  coal.  Mountains.  But  for  the  protrusion  of  this 
There  seemed  to  be  a  thin  crust  or  veneering  j  wedge  the  "Centennial  State"  would  have 
of  this  kind  of  fine  detritus  over  the  drab-  j  been  a  quiet  pastoral  or  agricultural  territory 
tinted  soil,  not  thick  enough  to  be  readily  ob-  i  like  the  region  to  the  eastward.  The  rise  of 
servable,  but  yet  sufficiently  persistent  to  the  granitic  axis,  however,  has  brought  up 
supply  the  materials  so  patiently  gathered  to-  with  it  that  incredible  mineral  wealth  which, 
gether  into  these  little  mounds.  i  in  a  few  years,  has  converted  the  loneliest 

No  warning  bell  gives  the  traveler  notice  to  mountain  solitudes  into  busy  hives  of  industry, 
resume  his  place  in  the  cars,  and  we  had  just  j  Places  that  a  few  years  ago  were  haunted 
time  after  hearing  the  "All  aboard  !"  of  the  only  by  wild  beasts,  and  probably  hardly  ever 
conductor  to  regain  the  train,  more  puzzled  i  saw  even  a  red  man,  now  count  their  popula- 
than  ever  by  the  prairie  ant-hills.  The  source  tion  by  thousands.  Mining  camps  have 
of  this  fine  feldspar  drift,  and  the  cause  of  its  grown  into  cities  with  important  public 
being  spread  so  thinly  over  the  many  hun-  ;  buildings,  hotels,  and  many  of  the  luxuries 
dreds  of  square  miles  it  evidently  covered,  !  as  well  as  vices  of  modern  city  life.  There 
were  questions  in  the  history  of  the  prairies  is  a  feverish  rush  westward.  Advertisements 
which  we  could  not  answer,  but  to  which  we  placarded  all  over  the  Union  by  rival  railroad 
were  able  to  return  with  more  light  and  in-  companies  show  the  cheapest  and  quickest 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


route  to  the  new  El  Dorado  of  Colorado,  and 
hold  out  tempting  prospects  of  rapidly 
acquiring  a  fortune  there.  We  found  our- 
selves unwittingly  moving  westward  on  this 
wave  of  emigration.  It  was  tacitly  assumed 
that  we  too  were  bound  for  a  "claim"  some- 
where. 

After  a  glimpse  at  the  canons  and  camp- 
life  of  these  uplands,  we  skirted  their  eastern 
slopes  amid  mounds  of  dttris,  which  renewed 
our  interest  in  the  problem  that  had  been 
started  by  the  prairie  ant-hills.  Without  halting 
at  that  time,  however,  but  pursuing  our  way 
westward  by  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  we 
made  no  stop  till  we  came  within  sight  of 
the  Uintah  Mountains  in  Wyoming.  This 
long  journey  is  marked  in  the  recollection  of 
a  traveler  by  the  complete  demolition  of  his 
previous  mental  picture  of  the  ' '  Rocky 
Mountains. "  Misled  by  the  absurd  and  utterly 
false  system,  still  far  from  extinct, of  represent- 
ing a  watershed  on  a  map  by  a  continuous  range 
of  mountain  chain,  most  people  have  grown 
up  in  the  belief  that  the  backbone  of  North 
America  consists  of  a  colossal  rampart  of 
mountains  which  traverses  the  continent  as  a 
continuous  range,  running  in  a  nearly  north 
and  south  direction,  and  so  extraordinarily 
rugged  as  to  have  deserved  the  special  appel- 
lation of  "Rocky."  No  conception  could 
well  be  further  from  the  reality.  To  depict 
the  American  watershed  in  this  way  is  nearly 
as  erroneous  as  it  would  be  to  draw  a  lofty 
mountain  chain  from  the  Pyrenees  across  the 
heart  of  France,  Switzerland,  Germany,  and 
Russia,  as  indicative  of  the  watershed  of 
Europe.  Such  is  the  force  of  habit  engen- 
dered by  the  long  use  of  faulty  maps  that, 
though  we  knew  what  the  true  structure  of 
the  country  had  been  shown  to  be,  ic  was  with 
a  feeling  almost  of  incredulity  that  we  looked 
out  upon  the  scene  on  either  side  of  the  rail- 
road track  as  the  train  approached  the  sum- 
mit of  the  route.  The  Colorado  Alps  had 
sunk  down  into  a  series  of  low  ridges,  though 
we  could  still  see  in  the  far  distance  some  of 
their  more  notable  peaks.  Northward  the 
tops  of  some  distant  hills  in  Wyoming  loomed 
up  on  the  horizon,  but  all  around  us  not  only 
were  there  no  mountains,  but  hardly  anything 
that  deserved  to  be  called  a  hill — certainly 
nothing  that  for  a  moment  suggested  the 
crest  of  a  mountain  range.  The  railway 
company,  with  a  laudable  desire  for  the  diffu- 
sion of  correct  geographical  knowledge,  has 
had  a  board  inscribed  ' '  Summit  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains."  and  placed  at  the  highest  level 
of  their  line.  One  looks  round  with  a  feeling 
of  disappointment  for  the  peaks  and  crests  that 
ought  to  have  been  there.  Instead  of  these, 
there  is  the  same  long  smooth  prairie-like 
slope,  out  of  which  rise  numerous  quaint  knobs 
of  pink  granite.  The  central  wedge  not  having 
been  driven  so  far  upward,  here  forms  no 
conspicuous  feature  at  the  surface.  Yet  it 
has  carried  up  the  same  red  sandstones  on  its 
eastern  flank  that  rise  in  vertical  bands  among 


the  canons  north  of  Denver.  From  the  plain 
of  the  Missouri  the  prairie,  there  about  1,000 
feet  above  sea-level,  rises  slowly  in  elevation 
westward,  till  at  Cheyenne,  a  distance  of 
rather  more  than  500  miles,  its  surface  has  an 
average  elevation  of  about  6,000  feet.  In  the 
next  eighteen  miles,  however,  it  makes  a  more 
rapid  slope,  for  it  mounts  to  an  elevation  of 
8,271  feet  above  the  sea.  The  loss  of  the 
cherished  delusion  about  the  aspect  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  was  in  some  small  measure 
compensated  by  a  glimpse  we  had  of  the 
source  whence  the  prairies  have  derived  their 
fine  detritus  and  the  ants  their  favorite  pink 
building  materials.  The  granite  of  this  ele- 
vatf-d  plateau  is  a  bright  flesh-colored  rock 
crumbling  into  sand,  the  grains  of  which  are 
mainly  of  pink  cleavable  orthoclase  feldspar. 
Exposed  to  all  the  vicissitudes  of  weather  at 
so  great  an  altitude,  the  rock  readily  disin- 
tegrates. Every  shower  of  rain  washes  down 
some  of  its  detritus,  which  is  further  carried 
far  over  the  plains  by  wind.  It  was,  no 
doubt,  from  such  a  rock  as  this  that  the  wide- 
spread feldspar  drift  of  the  prairie  has  been 
derived,  and  this  very  ridge  has  probably  fur- 
nished a  due  amount  of  it. 

After  crossing  the  summit,  the  railroad 
track  descends  slowly  into  the  elevated  pla- 
teau known  as  the  Laramie  Plains,  which  still 
drain  eastward  into  the  Atlantic.  Not  until 
the  train  has  crossed  this  dreary  region  for 
some  1 50  miles  or  more,  does  it  reach  the  true 
watershed  of  the  country.  And  then,  instead 
of  a  colossal  rampart  of  rugged  mountains, 
we  find  still  the  same  monotonous  plains,  on 
which  the  few  names  that  have  been  affixed 
to  localities— Red  Desert,  Bitter  Creek,  Salt 
Wells,  and  others — sufficiently  denote  the 
sterile  character  of  the  region.  We  were 
now  among  the  head-waters  of  the  great 
Colorado  River  on  the  Pacific  slope  of  the 
continent.  But  of  visible  slope  there  is  for  a 
long  way  no  trace.  It  is  a  bare,  treeless, 
verdureless  waste,  crumbling  under  the  fierce 
glare  of  a  cloudless  sky  and  the  hot  blast  of 
a  parching  wind.  Yet  for  long  ages  these 
deserts  were  the  site  of  a  succession  of  lakes 
vaster  in  size  than  any  now  existing  on  the 
American  continent.  The  water  has  disap- 
peared, and  out  of  the  hardened  clay  and 
marl  of  the  lake  bottoms  the  elements  are 
carving  some  of  the  weirdest  scenery  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  Every  mile  of  the  dusty 
journey  now  brought  with  it  new  and  still 
stranger  proofs  of  this  marvelous  erosion. 
At  one  moment  we  were  looking  out  on  what 
might  have  been  taken  for  the  bastions  of  a 
fort  that  had  stood  a  long  siege.  Another 
curve  of  the  line  brought  into  view  seemingly 
the  moldering  battlements  and  decayed 
acropolis  of  some  early  heroic  city:  at  the 
next  turn  the  array  of  rock-forms  could  find 
no  adequate  parallel  in  human  architecture. 
Scenery  more  indescribable  can  hardly  be 
conceived.  As  yet,  indeed,  all  we  could  see 
or  know  of  these  "  Bad  Lands"  was  from  the 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


windows  of  the  car.  But  we  saw  clearly 
enough  by  their  level  lines  of  stratification 
that  their  forms  had  been  sculptured  out  of 
horizontal  rocks  by  surface  agents.  League 
after  league  this  lesson  of  utterly  inconceiv- 
able waste  rose  out  impressively  on  either 
side,  until  at  last,  when  we  reached  Carter 
Station,  we  almost  felt  that  we  had  seen 
about  as  much  as  our  faculties  could  very 
well  assimilate.  But  much  more  was  in  store 
for  us. 

Thanks  to  the  thoughtful  kindness  of  my 
friends,  Dr.  F.  V.  Hayden,  to  whom  the 
geology  of  Western  America  owes  so  much, 
and  Dr.  Joseph  Leidy,  the  revered  Nestor  of 
American  comparative  anatomy,  Judge  Carter 
was  waiting  our  arrival,  and  soon  carried  us 
off,  bag  and  baggage,  to  his  hospitable  home 
at  Fort  Bridger.  In  former  days,  before 
railway  communication  was  opened  across 
the  continent,  Fort  Bridger  was  an  important 
station  on  the  emigrant  road  to  Salt  Lake 
and  the  Pacific  Coast.  It  is  now  no  longer  a 
military  post,  and  being  at  a  distance  from 
the  present  highway  of  traffic,  some  of  its 
disused  buildings  are  falling  into  disrepair. 
But  Judge  Carter,  who  used  to  be  the  pa- 
triarch of  the  district,  still  lives  at  his  post, 
combining  in  his  own  worthy  person  the 
offices  of  postmaster,  merchant,  farmer, 
cattle-owner,  judge,  and  general  benefactor 
of  all  who  claim  his  hospitality.  His  well- 
known  probity  has  gained  him  the  respect 
and  good-will  of  white  man  and  red  man 
alike,  and  we  found  his  name  a  kind  of 
household  word  all  through  the  West.  So 
rapidly  and  completely  have  things  been 
changed  on  this  route  by  the  formation  of 
the  railway,  that  in  listening  to  Judge  Car- 
ter's stories  of  the  olden  time  one  could 
hardly  realize  that  some  of  the  most  startling 
of  them  did  not  go  further  back  than  fifteen 
or  twenty  years.  Horse-stealing  would  ap- 
pear to  have  been  the  one  unpardonable  sin 
in  these  quarters.  You  might  kill  a  man 
outright,  and  it  might  be  nobody's  affair 
either  to  avenge  him  or  to  see  you  brought 
to  justice  for  the  murder.  But  to  steal  his 
horse  was  to  leave  him  to  perish  on  the  plains ; 
and  if  you  stole  his  horse  this  week  you  might 
return  and  steal  mine  next.  So  the  best 
method  of  preventing  that  mishap  was  to  put 
it  out  of  your  power  ever  to  steal  again. 
Killing  you  was  consequently  not  murder  ;  it 
was  merely  punishing  effectually  an  offense 
that  could  not  be  reached  by  any  ordinary 
legal  means,  in  a  region  where  criminals  were 
many  and  police  were  none.  Judge  Carter  had 
had  many  experiences  of  horse-stealers.  On 
one  occasion,  traveling  eastward  across  the 
prairie  with  his  wife  and  family,  he  found 
next  morning  the  horses  stolen.  Such  a  po- 
sition resembles  that  of  a  ship  at  sea  without 
masts  or  sails.  There  was  no  station  at 
which  provisions  could  be  procured,  so  that 
the  loss  of  the  means  of  transport  meant 
starvation  and  death.  Fortunately  the  Judge 


succeeded  in  recovering  his  animals.  On 
another  occasion,  having  tried  and  convicted 
a  horse-stealer,  he  sent  him  in  custody  to  the 
Court  in  Utah.  The  man  was  chained  hands 
and  feet,  and  in  the  course  of  the  journey 
succeeded  in  breaking  his  foot-chain,  and 
though  still  manacled,  tried  to  escape.  He 
was  of  course  speedily  shot  by  the  two  men 
who  had  been  entrusted  with  the  mission, 
and  who  were  probably  a  couple  of  dare- 
devils no  whit  belt  r  than  himself.  They 
consulted  as  to  their  next  step,  and  finding 
in  their  writ  that  they  were  "to  deliver  the 
body  of  the  prisoner  "  to  the  sheriff  at  Salt 
Lake  City,  they  took  the  instructions  in  their 
literal  sense,  stowed  the  body  into  the  stage- 
coach, and  delivered  it  duly  at  its  destination. 
From  Fort  Bridger  the  Judge  carried  us  to 
see  the  "  Mauvaises  Terres,"  or  "  Bad 
Lands"  of  Wyoming.  This  expressive 
name  has  been  given  to  some  of  the  strang- 
est and,  in  many  respects,  most  repulsive 
scenery  in  the  world.  They  are  tracts  of 
irreclaimable  barrenness,  blasted  and  left 
forever  lifeless  and  hid  ous.  To  understand 
their  peculiar  features  it  is  needful  to  bear  in 
mind  that  they  lie  on  the  sites  of  some  of  the 
old  lakes  already  referred  to,  and  that  they 
have  been  carved  out  of  flat  sheets  of  sand- 
stone, clay,  marl,  or  limestone,  that  accumu- 
lated on  the  floors  of  these  lakes.  Every- 
where, therefore,  horizontal  lines  of  stratifi- 
cation meet  the  eye,  giving  alternate  stripes 
of  buff,  yellow,  white,  or  red,  with  here  and 
there  a  strange  verdigris-like  green.  These 
strata  extend  nearly  horizontally  for  hundreds 
of  square  miles.  But  they  have  been  most 
unequally  eroded.  Here  and  there  isolated 
flat-topped  eminences  or  ' '  buttes, "  as  they 
styled  in  the  West,  rise  from  the  plain  in 
front  of  a  line  of  bluff  or  cliff  to  a  height  of 
several  hundred  feet.  On  examination,  each 
of  these  hills  is  found  to  be  built  up  of  hori- 
zontal strata,  and  the  same  beds  reappear  in 
lines  of  terraced  cliff  along  the  margin  of  the 
plain.  A  butte  is  only  a  remnant  of  the 
original  deep  mass  of  horizontal  strata  that 
once  stretched  far  across  the  plain.  Its  sides 
and  the  fronts  of  the  terraced  cliffs,  utterly 
verdureless  and  bare,  have  been  scarped  into 
recesses  and  projecting  buttresses.  These 
have  been  further  cut  down  into  a  labyrinth 
of  peaks  and  columns,  clefts  and  ravines, 
now  strangely  monumental,  now  uncouthly 
irregular,  till  the  eye  grows  weary  with  the 
endless  variety  and  novelty  of  the  forms. 
Yet  beneath  all  this  chaos  of  outlines  there 
can  be  traced  everywhere  the  level  parallel 
Dars  of  the  strata.  The  same  band  of  rock, 
originally  one  of  the  successive  floors  of  the 
o'd  lake,  can  be  followed  without  bend  or 
areak  from  chasm  to  chasm,  and  pinnacle  to 
jinnacle.  Tumultuous  as  the  surface  may 
3C,  it  has  no  relation  to  underground  disturb- 
ances, for  the  rocks  are  as  level  and  unbro- 
cen  as  when  they  were  laid  down.  It 
ts  ruggedness  entirely  to  erosion. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


But  there  is  a  further  feature  which  crowns 
the  repulsiveness  of  the  Bad  Lands.  There 
are  no  springs  or  streams.  Into  the  soil, 
parched  by  the  fierce  heats  of  a  torrid  sum- 
mer, the  moisture  of  the  sub-soil  ascends  by 
capillary  attraction,  carrying  with  it  the 
saline  solutions  it  has  extracted  from  the 
rocks.  At  the  surface  it  is  at  once  evapo- 
rated, leaving  behind  a  white  crust  or  efflo- 
rescence, which  covers  the  hard  ground  and 
encrusts  the  pebbles  strewn  thereon.  Vege- 
tation wholly  fails,  save  here  and  there  a 
bunch  of  salt-weed  or  a  bush  of  the  ubiqui- 
tous sage-brush,  the  parched  livid  green  of 
which  serves  only  to  increase  the  desolation 
of  the  desert. 

How,  then,  has  this  strange  type  of  land- 
scape been  produced  ?  The  rainfall  is  ex- 
ceedingly small,  though  from  lime  to  time 
come  heavy  showers  that  no  doubt  do  muc  i 
to  furrow  the  crumbling  sides  of  the  cliffs 
and  "buttes,"and  sweep  down  the  detritus 
to  lower  ground.  The  main  instrument  of 
destruction,  however,  is  not  rain.  In  the 
clear  dry  air  of  these  western  regions  the 
daily  range  of  temperature  is  astonishingly 
great.  In  my  own  experience,  the  thermom- 
eter rose  sometimes  to  90°  in  the  shade,  and 
fell  at  night  to  19°  Fahr.  But  this  daily 
range  of  71°  is  much  exceeded.  Exposed 
during  the  day  to  the  expansion  caused  by 
such  heat,  and  during  the  night  to  contrac- 
tion from  such  rapid  chilling,  the  surface  of 
the  friable  strata  is  in  a  constant  state  of 
strain,  under  which  it  exfoliates  and  crumbles 
into  sand.  The  sultry  air  during  the  earlier 
part  of  the  day  remains  motionless.  Again 
and  again  we  saw  mirage  across  the  plains. 
The  isolated  buttes  and  projecting  cliffs  were 
broken  up  into  clumps  like  trees,  beneath 
•which  lay  what  seemed  the  sheen  of  a  placid 
lake,  though  really  a  parched  sage-brush 
plain,  or  a  burning  expanse  of  sand  and  al- 
kali soil.  But  in  the  afternoon  a  wind  always 
rose  and  swept  across  the  country,  though 
fortunately,  during  our  exploration,  never 
getting  beyond  a  breeze.  But  it  was  not 
difficult  to  realize  what  these  blasts  must  be 
in  the  full  blaze  of  summer,  when  the  hot 
air,  like  the  breath  of  a  simoom,  rushes 
along  the  desert,  lifting  up  clouds  of  sand 
and  of  the  fine  white  efflorescent  dust.  The 
powdery  « urface  of  the  crumbling  rocks  is 
blown  away.  Wastes  of  loose  sand,  here 
piled  into  shifting  dunes,  there  dispersed  far 
and  wide  over  the  desert,  are  continually 
augmented  by  fresh  supplies  of  material 
from  the  same  source.  Every  pebble  that 
projects  above  the  ground  acquires,  under 
the  action  of  the  ceaseless  sand  drift,  a  cu- 
riously polished  and  channeled  surface.  And 
the  same  erosive  action  no  doubt  affects  the 
moldering  precipices  of  the  Bad  Lands. 
The  rocks  are  actually  ground  down  by  their 
own  detritus,  driven  against  them  by  the 
wind- 

To  the  south  of  the  Bad  Lands  lie  the 


Uintah  Mountains,  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing  ranges  in  North  America;  for,  instead •& 
following  the  usual  north  and  south  direction, 
it  runs  nearly  east  and  west,  and,  in  place  or" 
a  central  crystalline  wedge  driven  through 
the  younger  formations,  it  consists  of  a  vast 
flat  arch  of  nearly  horizontal  strata  that 
plunge  steeply  down  into  the  plains  on  either 
side.  We  made  an  excursion  from  Fort 
Bridger  into  these  mountains.  From  the 
arid  plains  the  change  was  pleasant  to  the 
densely  forest-clad  flanks  of  the  chain.  We 
had,  as  guide,  from  the  Judge,  an  old  trapper 
who  had  long  hunted  in  the  mountains,  and 
who  had  a  good  wallet  of  stories  for  the 
camp-fire  at  night.  We  shall  not  soon  for- 
get our  first  day's  experience  of  an  American 
forest  Starting  early  with  the  view  o.f 
getting  above  the  timber-line,  and  having 
a  general  birdseye  view  of  the  interior  of 
the  mountains,  we  rode  for  several  hours 
through  the  forest,  making  for  a  far  peak 
that  rose  high  above  the  dense  forest^of 
pine.  Probably  the  first  remark  of  a  novice 
from  the  Old  World,  when  he  enters  the 
forests  of  the  New,  is  sugges'ed  by  the 
slimness  and  height  of  the  trees  ;  they  look 
like  .huge  poles,  feathered  at  top,  and  stuck 
irregularly  into  the  ground — sometimes  so 
near  each  other  that  one  cannot  force  one's 
way  between  two  trunks.  Rarely,  even  in  the 
opener  glades,  does  one  meet  with  a  really 
handsome,  well-grown  stem,  throwing  its 
branches  out  freely  all  the  way  up.  The  next 
subject  of  astonishment  is  the  variety  of 
stages  of  growth  among  the  timber.  The 
tiny  sapling,  not  long  enough  for  a  walking- 
stick,  may  be  seen  springing  up  beside  ths 
molderiug  prostrate  stem  of  a  departed  patri- 
arch of  ti:e  forest.  Between  these  extremes 
every  gradation  may  be  seen  at  any  place 
where  one  chooses  to  look,  giving  an  impres- 
sion of  calm,  undisturbed  nature  and  vener- 
able antiquity.  Another  novelty,  and  perhaps 
the  most  striking  ot  all.  is  the  sight  of  so 
much  fallen  timber.  Many  trees  die  and 
decay,  but  yet  remain  erect,  either  because 
their  roots  hold  on,  or  because  their  stems  are 
kept  in  place  by  the  support  of  their  still  living 
neighbors.  Others  lose  their  stability,  and 
topple  over  upon  those  next  them.  Every 
angle  of  inclination  among  these  decaying 
stems  may  be  observed.  You  can  ride  beneath 
some  of  them,  though  with  the  risk  of  having 
your  hat  switched  off  by  some  unobserved 
branch.  Others  you  may  walk  your  horse 
over,  and  an  animal  accustomed  to  the  work 
acquires  a  wonderful  dexterity  in  surmount- 
ing  these  obstacles.  But  when  the  trunks 
approach  the  ground,  or  when  they  lie  piled 
across  each  other,  as  they  so  continually  do, 
you  must  ride  round  them  ;  so  that  in  those 
parts  of  the  forest  where  fallen  timber  is 
plentiful  your  progress  becomes  provokingly 
slow  and  laborious.  To  us,  however,  every- 
thing was  fresh.  We  rode  oc,  hour  after 
hour,  in  a  kind  of  new  world,  gradually  as- 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


11 


tending  till  we  found  ourselves  on  the  crest 
of  a  wide  valley  filled  with  pine  forest  up  to 
the  brim,  yet  with  stripes  of  green  meadow 
peeping  out  here  and  there  along  its  center. 
From  the  farther  side  of  this  great  depression 
rose  the  fine  snow-streaked  summits  of  the 
chain.  The  descent  was  less  easy  than  the 
ascent  had  been,  for  the  trees  had  fallen 
thickly  down  the  steep  declivity,  which  was 
further  roughened  by  rocky  ledges  and  fallen 
crags  that  would  have  been  easy  enough  to 
surmount  with  free  hands  and  feet,  but  which 
acquired  in  our  eyes  a  novel  importance  from 
the  difficulty  of  getting  a  horse  over  them. 
Nevertheless,  every  obstacle  was  successfully 
overcome.  We  climbed  the  opposite  side  of 
the  valley,  as  far  as  it  was  practicable  to  take 
the  horses,  and  then,  leaving  them  in  charge 
of  "Dan,"  scaled  the  crags  and  steep  slopes 
of  dJbris.  We  were  soon  above  the  limit  of 
tree  growth,  and  emerged  at  last  on  a  broad 
bare  plateau  between  11,000  and  12,000  feet 
above  the  sea. 

The  structure  of  the  Uintah  Mountains 
has  been  investigated  by  several  surveying 
parties  under  the  War  and  Interior  De- 
partments. Having  read  the  reports  of  the 
Hayden,  Powell,  and  King  surveys,  I  was 
now  able  to  take  in,  with  comparative  ease, 
the  general  aspect  and  meaning  of  the  mag- 
nificent panorama  around  us.  The  broad 
central  mass  of  the  range  is  constructed  ot  a 
flat  arch  of  dull  red  sandstones.  The  isolated 
peaks  and  ranges  of  buttressed  cliffs  along 
this  part  of  the  mountains  reveal  everywhere 
horizontality  of  their  component  strata.  Like 
the  Bad  Lands,  but  on  a  far  more  magnificent 
scale,  they  have  been  cut  into  their  present 
forms  by  atmospheric  sculpturing.  Origin- 
ally the  rocks  stretched  in  an  unbroken  sheet 
across  the  mountains  ;  but  in  the  course  of 
ages  this  continuous  mantle  has  been  enor- 
mously eroded  Deep  and  wide  valleys,  vast 
amphitheaters,  lofty  terraced  alcoves,  and 
profound  gorges,  fretted  with  an  infinite  array 
ft  peaks,  buttresses,  pinnacles,  columns, 
obelisks,  and  endless  forms  which  defy  the 
observer  to  find  properly  descriptive  names 
for  them,  have  gradually  been  carved  out  of 
these  rocks.  Isolated  cones,  with  singularly 
majestic  architectural  forms,  have  been  left 
standing  in  the  midst  of  the  denudation  as 
monuments  of  its  greatness.  The  world  can 
show  few  more  impressive  memorials  of  the 
efficacy  of  sub-aerial  erosion  than  in  the 
Uintah  Mountains.  There  are  no  structure- 
less crystalline  rocks  here  to  deceive  us  with 
their  ruggedness.  Every  peak  and  crest, 
valley  and  canon,  bears  witness  to  superficial 
structure.  Wherever  the  eye  turns  it  detects 
the  same  long  lines  of  horizontal  stratification 
that  serve  as  a  base  from  which  the  reality 
and  amount  of  the  erosion  may  be  measured. 
To  gain  such  a  vivid  impression  of  the  im- 
portance of  sub-aerial  waste  in  the  evolution 
of  mountain- forms  was  worth  all  the  long 
journey  in  itself.  Yet  to  the  south  of  these 


mountains,  in  the  high  plateaux  of  Utah  and 
the  great  basin  of  the  Colorado,  the  proofs 
of  enormous  superficial  waste  rise  to  such  a 
gigantic  scale  as  wholly  to  baffle  every  ob- 
server who  has  yet  attempted  to  describe 
them. 

A  little  below  the  summit  which  we  had 
gained  we  found  some  bushes  in  fruit  that 
recalled  the  wild  gooseberry  of  home ;  near 
these  a  few  stunted  Douglas  pines  struggled 
for  life.  But  of  animal  life  at  these  heights 
we  neither  saw  nor  heard  any  sign,  though 
bears,  deer,  and  other  large  game  haunt  the 
surrounding  forests.  Rejoining  the  horses 
and  then  descending  as  rapidly  as  possible, 
we  passed  on  the  way  some  little  tarns  filling 
high  recesses  of  the  mountain,  but  so  thickly 
wooded  round  that  we  failed  to  find  the  ice- 
worn  sides  that  were  no  doubt  there  to  mark 
the  presence  of  a  former  glacier ;  for  no 
so  ner  had  we  reached  the  valley-bottom  than 
abundant  traces  of  vanished  glaciers  made 
their  appearance  in  the  form  of  perfect  cres- 
cent-shaped moraine  mounds  thrown  across 
the  valley.  On  these  were  strewn  huge 
blocks  of  red  sandstone,  borne  of  old  on  the 
surface  of  the  ice  from  far  crags  on  the  sky- 
line. Each  mound  of  rubbish  had  served  as 
a  more  or  less  effective  barrier  in  the  path- 
way of  the  stream,  ponding  back  its  waters 
into  a  lake  that  had  eventually  been  con- 
verted into  a  meadow.  But  far  more  effec- 
tive than  the  glacier-made  dams  had  been 
those  of  the  beaver.  The  extent  to  which 
the  valley  bottoms  in  this  and  the  other 
mountain  ranges  of  Western  North  America 
have  been  changed  by  the  operations  of  this 
animal  is  almost  incredible.  In  a  single  val- 
ley, for  example,  hundreds  of  acres  are  grad- 
ually submerged,  and  their  cotton-wood  or 
other  tree-growth  is  killed.  In  this  way  the 
floor  of  the  valley  is  cleared  of  timber.  The 
beaver-ponds  eventually  silting  up,  become 
first  marshes  and  then  by  degrees  fine 
meadows.  Riding  along  the  stream  we 
passed  on  its  banks  several  groups  of  short 
stakes  thrust  into  the  ground  and  tied  to- 
gether so  as  to  form  a  framework  as  if  for  low 
huts  or  wigwams.  They  were  quite  deserted, 
and  had  been  so  for  some  time.  Dan  told  us 
they  were  constructed  1  y  the  Indians  for 
bathing  purposes.  Each  of  them  is  large 
enough  to  hold  only  one  person  at  a  time. 
When  in  use  they  are  covered  with  skins,  a 
fire  is  kindled  inside  and  kept  burning  until  a 
a  few  stones  placed  in  it  are  thoroughly 
warmed.  The  Indian  or  his  squaw  then 
creeps  in,  remains  until  perspiration  has  been 
induced,  and  finally  dashes  out  into  the  stream 
below.  It  was  curious  to  find  this  simple 
form  of  sudatorium  and  frigidarium  among 
the  Utes  in  the  wilds  of  the  Far  West. 

It  was  now  afternoon.  We  rested  near  an 
old  beaver-dam,  caught  a  few  trout  for  sup- 
per, and  crossing  the  valley  began  the  ascent 
of  its  farther  side.  The  point  at  which  we 
recrossed  the  stream  was  considerably  lower 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


that  that  by  which  we  had  made  our  way  in 
the  morning.  But  I  had  taken  my  bearings 
when  we  were  clear  of  the  timber,  and 
had  no  doubt  we  should  strike  into  our 
previous  route.  The  ascent  was  steeper, 
rougher,  and  more  impeded  with  fallen 
timber  than  anything  we  had  yet  come 
to.  By  the  time  we  reached  the  summit  the 
golden  sunlight  was  playing  in  level  beams 
among  the  tall  pines  of  the  crest,  and  we 
knew  it  would  be  dark  in  little  more  than  an 
hour.  Pushing  on  through  the  forest,  our 
guide  kept  more  and  more  towards  the  right 
hand,  away  from  the  line  which  I  felt  sure 
was  that  of  my  bearings  from  the  mountain. 
We  should  have  reached  our  camp,  or  at 
least  the  valley  leading  to  it,  but  there  was 
no  sign  of  either.  Nothing  all  round  us  but 
a  forest  that  was  growing  every  minute  darker 
and  more  hopeless.  At  last  Dan,  who  would 
not  admit  that  he  had  lost  his  way,  consented, 
but  with  some  show  of  reluctance,  to  wheel 
round  to  the  left.  Night  was  now  descend- 
ing fast.  Here  and  there  we  emerged  from 
the  gloom  of  the  pines  into  an  open  space 
where  there  had  been  a  forest  fire.  Seen  in 
the  dim  light  of  departing  day,  tall  trunks 
blackened  by  the  fire,  others  bleached  whi*e 
by  the  loss  of  their  scorched  barks,  rose  up 
like  a  companyof  specters,  swinging  their  gaunt 
arms  against  the  sky  as  if  to  warn  us  not  to 
pass  them  into  the  darkness  beyond.  After 
such  opener  intervals  the  forest,  as  we  re- 
entered  it,  became  more  somber  than  ever. 
The  trees  seemed  to  close  all  around  and  over 
us.  The  fallen  timber  increased  in  confu- 
sion, the  horses  stumbled  on,  and  we  could 
no  longer  see  to  guide  them.  Reaching  at 
last  a  little  glade  above  which  we  could  see 
the  stars,  we  resolved  to  pass  the  night 
there.  Dan  took  charge  of  the  horses, 
and  we  groped  our  way  to  where  we  hoped 
to  find  water.  Our  search  proved  successful, 
and  as  we  were  tired  and  thirsty  we  drank 
heartily  from  some  pools  which  we  could  not 
see,  and  only  discovered  by  getting  into  them. 
On  our  return  we  found  that  Dan  had  kindled 
a  fire,  which  was  blazing  and  crackling  mer- 
rily. This  was  nearly  all  the  comfort  that 
could  be  had  under  the  circumstances.  For 
we  had  no  food  with  us  except  the  trout 
caught  in  the  afternoon,  and  no  covering  for 
the  night  save  the  saddle-cloths  of  the  horses. 
There  was  no  help  for  it,  however ;  so  the 
trout  were  duly  roasted  and  eaten,  and  each 
donned  his  saddle-cloth  as  bed  and  bedding 
combined.  But  before  long  it  was  evident 
that,  choosing  his  fireplace  in  the  dark,  our 
guide  had  placed  it  in  rather  perilous  prox- 
imity to  a  quantity  of  dried  brushwood  and 
fallen  timber.  And,  indeed,  before  we  could 
do  anything  to  prevent  them,  the  flames 
spread  onward  till  a  venerable  pine  caught 
fire,  and  was  soon  a  sheet  of  coruscating  fire- 
works. His  neighbors  followed  his  example, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  it  was  evident  that  the 
forest  was  on  fire.  The  flames  rushed  along 


the  branches,  mounting  higher  and  higher 
far  up  into  the  lofty  crests  of  the  pines, 
whence  showers  of  sparks  flew  out  and  fell  in 
long  lines  through  the  profoundly  calm  air. 
Tree  after  tree  joined  the  conflagration,  till 
the  reports  of  the  exploding  branches,  the 
hiss  of  the  leaping  flames,  and  the  crash  of 
the  falling-firebrands,  with  the  ghastly  glare 
that  now  died  down  almost  to  darkness  and 
anon  shot  forth  into  renewed  brightness, 
made  sle'ip  unwelcome  even  had  it  been  will- 
ing to  come.  Fortunately  the  fire  eventually 
spent  its  fury  on  the  trees  that  stood  round 
the  open  spot  we  had  selected.  It  had  died 
down  before  morning.  The  presence  of  so 
much  heat  around  us  did  little  to  modify  the 
cold  of  the  night  air,  and  our  thin  saddle-cloths 
were  not  of  much  more  service.  My  friend 
and  I  huddled  as  close  together  as  possible, 
and  lay  looking  up  at  the  quiet  stars  as  they 
slowly  sailed  across  our  little  space  of  sky, 
yet  keeping  an  eye,  too,  on  the  progress  of 
the  conflagration,  lest  by  any  chance  the  flames 
should  spread  and  surround  us.  The  stones 
underneath  us  seemed  somehow  to  grow 
harder  and  more  prominent  before  morning. 
I  got  up  more  than  once  and  removed  an 
offending  block,  but  its  place  was  soon  taken 
by  another.  At  last  the  first  faint  blush  of 
dawn  appeared  beyond  the  pine-tops.  As 
soon  as  daylight  returned,  the  horses,  which 
had  been  laboring  wearily  all  night  to  find  a 
meal  among  the  brushwood,  were  harnessed, 
and  we  resumed  the  march.  It  was  a  glori- 
ous morning.  Not  a  breath  of  air  was  yet 
astir.  Long  wreaths  of  blue  smoke  from  our 
conflagration  lay  at  rest  among  the  pine-trees, 
like  streaks  of  cloud  asleep  on  a  mountain. 
We  followed  the  r.ame  line  that  we  had  been 

Eursuing  when  darkness  came  down  the  even- 
ig  before.     We  had  gone  scarcely  half   a 
mile  when  we  found  ourselves  at  the  edge  of 
an  open  valley,  and  there  in  front  stood  our 
tent,  gleaming  white  in  the  motning  sunlight. 


THE  GEYSERS   OF  THE  YELLOW- 
STONE. 

The  traveler  by  railway  across  the  Amer- 
ican continent,  after  traversing  several  hun- 
dred miles  of  barren  plain  and  sandy  desert, 
finds  at  last  that  the  line  begins  sensibly  to 
descend.  The  panting  engine  moves  along 
with  increasing  ease  and  diminished  noise  as 
it  enters  a  long  valley  that  leads  out  of  the 
western  plains,  sweeping  by  the  base  of  high 
cliffs,  past  the  mouths  of  narrow  lateral  val- 
leys, crossing  and  recrossing  the  watercourses 
by  slim  creaking  bridges ;  now  in  a  deep 
cutting,  now  in  a  short  tunnel,  it  brings 
picturesque  glimpses  into  view  in  such  quick 
succession  as  almost  to  weary  the  eye  that 
tries  to  scan  them  as  they  pass.  After  the 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


13 


dusty  monotonous  prairie,  to  see  and  hear 
the  rush  of  roaring  rivers,  to  catch  sight  of 
waterfalls  leaping  down  the  crags,  scattered 
pine  trees  crowning  the  heights,  and  green 
meadows  carpeting  the  valleys,  to  find,  too, 
that  every  mile  brings  you  farther  into  a  re- 
gion of  cultivated  fields  and  cheerful  home- 
steads, is  a  pleasure  not  soon  to  be  forgotten. 
The  Mormons  have  given  a  look  of  long- 
settled  comfort  to  these  valleys.  Fields,  or- 
chards, and  hedgerows,  with  neat  farm 
buildings,  and  gardens  full  of  flowers,  remind 
one  of  bits  of  the  old  country  rather  than  of 
the  bare  flowerless  settlements  in  the  West. 
But  the  sight  of  a  group  of  Chinamen  here 
and  there  at  work  on  the  line  dispels  the  mo- 
mentary illusion. 

Winding  rapidly  down  a  succession  of 
gorges  or  canons  (for  every  valley  in  the 
West  seems  to  be  known  as  a  canon),  the 
traveler  finds  at  last  that  he  has  entered  the 
"Great  Basin"  of  North  America,  and  has 
arrived  near  the  margin  of  the  Great  Salt 
Lake.  Looking  back,  he  perceives  that  the 
route  by  which  he  has  come  is  one  of  many 
transverse  valleys  hollowed  out  of  the  flanks 
of  the  noble  range  of  the  Wahsatch  Moun- 
tains. This  range  serves  at  once  as  the 
western  boundary  of  the  plateau  country  and 
as  the  eastern  rim  of  the  Great  Basin,  into 
which  it  plunges  as  a  colossal  rampart  from 
an  average  height  of  some  four  thousand 
feet  above  the  plain,  though  some  of  its  iso- 
lated summits  rise  to  more  than  twice  that 
altitude.  From  the  base  of  this  great  moun- 
tain-wall the  cc  untry  stretches  westward  as  a 
vast  desert  plain,  in  a  slight  depression  of 
which  lies  the  Great  Salt  Lake.  By  indus- 
triously making  use  of  the  drainage  from 
their  mountain  barrier,  the  Mormons  have 
converted  the  strip  of  land  between  the  base 
of  the  heights  and  the  edge  of  the  water  into 
fertile  fields  and  well-kept  gardens. 

Everybody  knows  that  the  Great  Basin  has 
no  outlet  to  the  ocean  ;  yet  nobody  can  see 
.the  scene  with  his  own  eyes  and  refuse  to  ad- 
mit the  sense  of  strange  novelty  with  which 
it  fills  his  mind.  One's  first  desire  is  naturally 
to  get  to  the  lake.  From  a  dista-.ce  it  looks 
blue  enough,  and  not  different  from  other 
sheets  of  water.  But  on  a  nearer  view  its 
shore  is  seen  to  be  a  level  plain  of  salt- 
crusted  mud.  So  gently  does  this  plain  slip 
under  the  water  that  the  actual  margin  of  the 
lake  is  not  very  sharply  drawn.  The  water 
has  a  heavy,  motionless,  lifeless  aspect,  and 
is  practically  destitute  of  living  creatures  of 
every  kind.  Fish  are  found  in  the  rivers 
leading  into  the  lake,  but  into  the  lake  itself 
they  never  venture.  Nor  did  we  see  any  of 
the  abundant  bird-life  that  would  have  been 
visible  on  a  fresh-water  lake  of  such  dimen- 
sions. There  was  a  stillness  in  the  air  and 
on  the  water  befitting  the  strange  desert  a ;- 
pect  of  the  scenery. 

After  looking  at  the  water  for  a  while,  the 
next  step  was  of  course  to  get  into  it.  The 


Mormons  and  Gentiles  of  Salt  Lake  City 
make  good  use  of  their  lake  for  bathing  pur- 
poses. At  convenient  points  they  have 
thrown  out  wooden  piers  provided  with  dress- 
ing-rooms and  hot-water  apparatus.  Betak- 
ing ourselves  to  one  of  these  erections,  my 
companion  and  I  were  soon  fitted  out  in 
bathing  costumes  of  approved  pattern,  and 
descending  into  the  lake  at  once,  realized  the 
heaviness  of  the  water.  In  walking,  the  leg 
that  is  lifted  off  the  bottom  seems  somehow 
bent  on  rising  to  the  surface,  and  some  ex- 
ertion is  needed  to  force  it  down  again  to  the 
mud  below.  One  suddenly  feels  top-heavy, 
and  seems  to  need  special  care  not  to  turn 
feet  uppermost.  The  extreme  shallowness 
of  the  lake  is  also  soon  noticed.  We  found 
ourselves  at  first  barely  over  the  knees  ;  so 
we  proceeded  to  march  into  the  lake.  After 
a  long  journey,  so  long  that  it  seemed  we 
ought  to  be  almost  out  of  sight  of  the  shore, 
we  were  scarcely  up  to  the  waist.  At  its 
deepest  part  the  lake  is  not  more  than  about 
fifty  feet  in  depth.  Yet  it  measures  eighty 
miles  in  length  by  about  thirty-two  miles  in 
extreme  breadth.  We  made  some  experi- 
ments in  flotation,  but  always  with  the  un- 
comfortable feeling  that  our  bodies  were  not 
properly  ballasted  for  such  water,  and  that  we 
might  roll  over  or  turn  round  head  downmost 
at  any  moment.  It  is  quite  possible  to  float 
in  a  sitting  posture  with  the  hands  brought 
round  the  knees.  As  one  of  the  lisks  of 
these  experiments,  moreover,  the  water  would 
now  and  then  get  into  our  eyes,  or  find  out 
any  half-healed  wound  which  the  b  azing 
sun  of  the  previous  weeks  had  inflicted  upon 
our  faces.  So  rapid  is  the  evaporation  in 
the  dry  air  of  this  region  that  the  skin  after 
being  wetted  is  almost  immediately  crusted 
with  salt  I  noticed,  too,  that  the  wooden 
steps  leading  to  the  pier  were  hung  with  slen- 
der stalactites  of  salt  from  the  drip  of  the 
bathers.  After  being  pickled  in  this  fashion, 
we  had  the  luxury  of  washing  the  salt  crust 
off  with  th&douc/ie  of  hot  water  wherewith 
every  dressing-room  is  provided. 

It  was  strange  to  reflect  that  the  varied 
beauty  of  the  valleys  in  the  neighboring  moun- 
tains, with  their  meadows,  clumps  of  cotton- 
wood  trees,  and  rushing  streams,  should  lead 
into  this  lifeless,  stagnant  sea.  One  could 
not  contemplate  the  scene  without  a  strong 
interest  in  the  history  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake. 
The  details  of  this  history  have  been  admira- 
bly worked  out  by  Mr.  G.  K.  Gilbert.  Theo- 
retically, we  infer  that  the  salt  lakes  of  con- 
tinental basins  were  at  first  fresh,  and  have 
become  salt  by  the  secular  evaporation  of 
their  waters  and  consequent  concentration  of 
the  salt  washed  into  them  from  their  various 
drainage  basins.  But,  in  the  case  of  the 
Great  Salt  Lake,  the  successive  stages  of  this 
long  process  have  been  actually  traced  in  the 
records  left  •  behind  on  the  surface  of  the 
ground.  At  present  the  amount  of  water 
poured  into  the  lake  nearly  balances  the 


14 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


amount  lost  by  evaporation,  so  that,  on  the 
whole,  the  level  of  the  lake  is  maintained. 
There  are,  however,  oscillations  of  level  de- 
pendent, no  doubt,  upon  variations  of  rain- 
fall. When  the  lake  was  surveyed  by  the 
Fortieth  Parallel  Survey  in  1872,  it  surface 
was  found  to  be  eleven  feet  higher  than  it 
was  in  1866.  During  the  last  few  years,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  lake  has  been  diminish- 
ing. The  Mormons  have  had  to  build  addi- 
tions to  the  ends  of  their  bathing  piers,  from 
which  the  water  had  receded.  There  has 
been  considerable  anxiety,  too,  at  Salt  Lake 
City,  on  the  subject  of  the  diminished  rain- 
fall, which  has  seriously  affected  the  supply 
of  water  for  irrigation  and  other  purposes. 

That  the  aspect  of  this  part,  at  least,  of  the 
Great  Basin  was  formerly  widely  different  is 
conclusively  proved  by  some  singular  features, 
which  are  among  the  first  to  attract  the  no- 
tice even  of  the  non-scientific  traveler  as  he 
journeys  round  the  borders  of  the  lake. 
Along  the  flanks  of  the  surrounding  moun- 
tains there  runs  a  group  of  parallel  level  lines, 
so  level,  indeed,  that  when  first  seen  they 
suggest  some  extensive  system  of  carefully- 
engineered  waterways.  On  a  far  larger  scale, 
they  are  the  equivalents  of  our  well-known 
Parallel  Roads  cf  Glen  Roy.  Mile  after  mile 
they  can  be  fo  lowed,  winding  in  and  out 
along  the  mountain  declivities,  here  and  there 
expanding  where  a  streamlet  has  pushed  out 
a  cone  of  detritus,  and  again  narrowing  to 
hardly  perceptible  selvages  along  steeper 
rocky  faces,  but  always  keeping  their  horizon- 
tality  and  their  proper  distance  from  each 
other.  That  these  terraces  are  former  shore- 
lines admits  of  no  doubt.  The  highest  of 
them  is  940  feet  above  the  present  surface  of 
the  lake,  which  is  4,250  feet  above  the  sea. 
Hence,  when  the  lake  stood  at  the  line  of 
that  terrace,  its  surface  was  5,190  feet  above 
sea-level.  Now,  it  has  been  found  that  the 


But  when,  owing  to  diminution  of 
the  rainfall,  the  lake  no  longer  possessed  an 
outlet,  and  in  the  course  of  ages  grew  grad- 
ually salt,  it  became  unfit  for  the  support  of 
life.  Ever  since  this  degree  of  salinity  was. 
reached  the  rivers  have  been  cut  off  from 
any  communication  with  each  other.  These 
are  precisely  the  conditions  which  the  natur- 
alist most  desires  in  tracing  the  progress  of 
change  in  animal  forms.  During  a  period 
which,  in  a  geological  sense,  is  comparatively 
short,  but  which,  measured  by  years,  must 
be  of  long  duration,  each  river-basin  has 
been  an  isolated  area,  with  its  own  peculiari- 
ties of  rock-structure,  slope,  vegetation,  char- 
acter of  water,  food  and  other  conditions  of 
environment  that  tell  so  powerfully  on  the 
evolution  of  organic  types.  A  beginning  has 
been  made  in  working  out  the  natural  history 
of  these  basins  ;  but  much  patient  labor  will 
be  needed  before  the  story  can  be  adequately 
told.  There  are  probably  few  areas  in  the 
world  which  offer  to  the  student  of  evolution 
so  promising  a  field  of  research. 

In  the  course  of  my  brief  sojourn  in  the- 
region,  I  was  able  to  make  an  observation  of 
some  interest  in  regard  to  the  history  of  the- 
Former  wide  enlargement  of  the  Great  Salt 
Lake.  The  Wahsatch  Mountains,  which- 
rise  so  picturesquely  above  the  narrow  belt 
of  Mormon  cultivation  between  their  base 
and  the  edge  of  the  water,  have  their  higher 
parts  more  or  less  covered,  or  at  least  streaked, 
with  snow,  even  in  midsummer,  though  at 
:he  time  of  my  visit,  by  reason  of  the  great 
icat,  and  I  suppose  in  part  also  of  a  dimin- 
.s.ied  snowfall,  the  snow  had  almost  entirely- 
disappeared.  But  any  cause  which  could 
ower  the  mean  summer  temperature  a  few- 
degrees  would  keep  a  permanent  snow-capon 
the  summits,  and  a  little  further  decrease- 
would  send  glaciers  down  the  valleys.  That 
jlaciers  formerly  did  descend  from  the  cen- 


highest  terrace  corresponds  with  a  gap  in  j  tral  masses  of  the  Wahsatch  range  is  put  be- 
the  rim  of  the  basin  lying  considerably  to  the  yond  question  by  the  scored  and  polished 
north  of  the  existing  margin  of  the  lake,  j  rocks  and  the  h-ige  piles  of  moraine  detritus- 
Consequently,  when  the  lake  stood  at  its  !  which  they  have  left  behind  them.  These 
highest  level,  it  had  an  outlet  northward  j  phenomena  have  been  described  by  the  geol- 
into  the  Snake  River,  draining  into  the  Pa-  ogists  of  the  Fortieth  Parallel  Survey,  and  I 
cific  Ocean,  and  must  thus  have  been  fresh,  could  fully  confirm  their  observations.  But: 
Moreover,  search  in  the  deposits  of  the  !  I  further  noticed  at  the  Little  Cottonwood> 


highest  terrace  has  brought  to  light 
convincing  proof  of  the  freshness  of 
the  water  at  that  time,  for  numerous 


Canon  that  the  moraines  descend  to  the  edge- 
of  the  highest  terrace,  and  that  t  e  glacial 
rubbish  forms  part  of  the  alluvial  deposits 


shells  have  been   fcun  1  belonging  to  lacus- j  there.     Hence  we  may  infer  that  at  the  time 


trine  species.  At  its  greatest  development 
the  lake  must  have  been  vastly  larger  than 
now—  a  huge  inland  sea  of  fresh  water  lying 
on  the  western  side  of  the  continent,  and 
quite  comparable  with  some  of  the  great 
lakes  on  the  eastern  side.  It  measured  about 
300  miles  from  north  to  south  and  180  miles 
in  extreme  width  from  east  to  west.  Into 
this  great  reservoir  of  fresh  water  fishes  from 
the  tributary  rivers  no  doubt  freely  entered, 
so  that,  on  the  whole,  a  community  of  spe- 
cies would  be  established  throughout  the 


of  the  greatest  extension  of  the  lake  the 
Wahsateh  Mountains  were  a  range  of  snowy- 
alps,  from  which  glaciers  descended  to  the- 
edge  of  the  water.  Salt  Lake  City  being- 
nearly  on  the  same  parallel  of  latitude  with 
Naples,  the  change  to  the  former  topography- 
would  be  somewhat  as  if  a  lofty  glacier-bear- 
ing range  took  the  place  of  the  Apennines  '-v 
the  south  of  Europe, 

One  leading  object  of  our  journey  was  to> 
see  the  wonders  of  the  Yellowstone — that  re- 
gion of  geysers,  mud  volcanoes,  hot  springs 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


and  sinter-beds,  which  the  United  States 
Congress,  with  wise  forethought,  has  set 
apart  from  settlement  and  reserved  for  the 
instruction  of  the  people.  In  a  few  years 
this  part  of  the  continent  will  no  doubt  be 
readily  accessible  by  rail  and  coach.  At  the 
time  of  our  visit  it  was  still  difficult  of  ap- 
proach. We  heard  on  the  way  the  most  omi- 
nous tales  of  Indian  atrocities  committed  only 
a  year  or  two  before,  and  were  warned  to  be 
prepared  for  something  of  the  kind  in  our 
turn.  So  it  was  with  a  little  misgiving  as  to 
the  prudence  of  the  undertaking  that  we 
struck  off  from  the  line  of  the  Union  Pacific 
Railway  at  Ogden  and  turned  our  faces  to 
the  north.  Ogden  is  the  center  at  which  the 
railway  from  Salt  Lake  City  and  that  from 
Northern  Utah  and  Idaho  join  the  main 
trans-continental  line.  The  first  part  of  the 
journey  passed  pleasantly  enough.  The  track 
is  a  very  narrow  one  and  the  carriages  are 
proportionately  small.  We  started  in  the' 
evening,  and  sitting  at  the  end  of  the  last  car 
enjoyed  the  glories  of  a  sunset  over  the  Great 
Salt  Lake.  Next  day  about  noon  brought  us 
to  the  end  of  the  railway  in  the  midst  of  a 
desert  of  black  basalt  and  loose  sand,  with  a 
tornado  blowing  the  hot  desert  dust  in  blind- 
ing clouds  through  the  air.  It  was  the  odd- 
est "terminus"  conceivable,  consisting  of 
about  a  score  of  wooden  booths  stuck  down 
at  random,  with  rows  of  freight  wagons 
mixed  up  among  them,  and  the  miscellaneous 
population  of  a  thoroughly  Western  town.  In 
a  fortnight  afterward  the  railway  was  to  be 
opened  some  fifty  miles  farther  north,  and  the 
whole  town  and  its  inhabitants  would  then 
move  to  the  new  terminus.  Some  weeks  af- 
terward, indeed,  we  returned  by  rail  over 
the  same  track,  and  the  only  traces  of  our 
mushroom  town  were  the  tin  biscuit-boxes, 
preserved-meat  cans  and  other  debns  scat- 
tered about  on  the  dese.-t  and  too  heavy  for 
the  wind  to  disperse. 

With  this  cessation  of  the  railway  all  com- 
fort in  traveling  utterly  disappeared.  A 
"stage,"  loaded  inside  and  outside  with  pack- 
ages, but  supposed  to  be  capable  of  carrying 
eight  passengers  besides,  was  now  to  be  our 
mode  of  conveyance  over  the  bare,  burning, 
treeless  and  roadless  desert.  The  recollec- 
tion of  Those  two  days  and  nights  stands  out 
as  a  kind  of  nightmare.  I  gladly  omit  fur- 
ther reference  to  them.  There  should  have 
been  a  third  day  and  night,  but  by  what 
proved  a  fortunate  accident  we  escaped  this 
prolongation  of  the  horror.  Reaching  Vir- 
ginia City,  a  collection  of  miserable  wooden 
houses,  many  of  th:m  deserted — for  the  gold 
of  the  valley  is  exhausted,  though  many  Chi- 
nese are  there  working  over  the  old  refuse 
heaps — we  learnt  that  we  were  too  late  for 
the  stage  to  'Boseman.  Meeting,  however,  a 
resident  from  Boseman  as  anxious  to  be  there 
as  ourselves,  we  secured  a  carriage  and  were 
soon  again  in  motion.  By  one  of  the  rapid  me- 
teorological changes  not  infrequent  at  such 


altitudes,  the  weather,  which  had  before  been 
warm,  and  sometimes  even  hot,  now  became 
for  a  day  or  two  disagreeably  chilly.  As  we 
crossed  a  ridge  into  the  valley  of  the  Madison 
River  snow  fell,  and  the  mountain  crests 
had  had  their  first  whitening  for  the 
season  when  we  caught  sight  of  them,  peak 
beyond  peak,  far  up  into  the  southern  hori- 
zon. This  valley  contained  the  first  illustra- 
tions we  had  yet  seen  of  those  vast  alluvial 
accumulations  which  form  so  marked  a 
feature  of  many  of  the  larger  rivers  of  West- 
ern America  where  they  debouch  from  the 
mountains.  Across  the  whole  broad  plain, 
evidently  of  alluvial  origin,  the  Madison  had 
worked  its  way  from  side  to  side.  From  the 
mouths  of  the  principal  tributary  valleys 
higher  terraces  of  alluvium  opened  out  upon 
the  main  valley,  each  affluent  projecting  a 
tongue  of  detritus  from  the  base  of  the  hills. 
Night  had  fallen  when  we  crossed  the  Madi- 
son River  below  its  last  canon,  and  further 
progress  became  impossible.  There  was  a 
"ranch,"  or  cattle-farm,  not  far  off,  where 
our  companion  had  slept  before,  and  where 
he  proposed  that  we  should  demand  quarters 
for  the  night.  A  good-natured  welcome  re- 
conciled us  to  rough  fare  and  hard  beds. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  third  day  we  at 
length  reached  Boseman,  the  last  collectirn 
of  houses  between  us  and  the  Yellowstone. 
A  few  miles  beyond  it  stands  Fort  Ellis,  a 
post  of  the  United  States  army,  built  to  com- 
mand an  important  pass  from  the  territory  to 
the  east  still  haunted  by  Indians.  Through 
the  kind  thoughtfulness  of  my  friend,  Dr. 
Hayden,  I  had  been  provided  with  letters  of 
introduction  from  the  authorities  at  Wash- 
ington to  the  commandants  of  posts  in  the 
West.  I  found  my  arrival  expected  at  Fort 
Ellis,  and  the  quartermaster  happened  him- 
self to  have  come  down  to  Boseman.  Before 
the  end  of  the  afternoon  we  were  once  more 
in  comfort  under  his  friendly  roof.  And 
here  I  am  reminded  of  an  incident  at  Bose- 
man which  brought  out  one  of  the  character- 
istics of  travel  in  America,  and  particularly 
in  the  West.  It  may  be  supposed  that  after 
so  long  and  so  dusty  a  journey  our  boots 
were  not  without  the  need  of  being  blacked. 
Having  had  luncheon  at  the  hotel,  I  inquired ' 
of  the  waiter  where  I  should  go  to  get  this 
done.  He  directed  me  to  the  clerk  in  the 
office.  This  formidable  personage,  seated  at 
his  ledger,  quietly  remarked  to  me,  without 
raising  his  eyes  off  his  pen,  that  he  guessed 
I  could  find  the  materials  in  the  corner.  And 
there,  true  enough,  were  blacking  pot  and 
brush,  with  which  every  guest  might  essay  to 
polish  his  boots  or  not,  as  he  pleased.  In 
journeying  westward  we  had  sometimes  seen 
a  placard  stuck  up  in  the  bedrooms  of  the 
hotel  to  the  effect  that  ladies  and  gentlemen 
putting  their  boots  outside  their  doors  must 
be  understood  to  do  so  at  their  own  risk.  In 
the  larger  hotels  a  shoe-black  is  one  of  the 
recognized  functionaries,  with  his  room  and 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


chair  of  state  for  those  who  think  it  needful 
to  employ  him. 

Of  Fort  Ellis  and  the  officers'  mess  there 
•we  shall  ever  keep  the  pleasantest  memories. 
INo  Indians  had  now  to  be  kept  in  order. 
There  was  indeed  nothing  to  do  at  the  Fort 
.save  the  daily  routine  of  military  duty.  A 
-very  small  incident  in  such  circumstances  is 
enough  to  furnish  amusement  and  conversa- 
tion for  an  evening.  We  made  an  excursion 
into  the  hills  to  the  south,  and  had  the  satis- 
faction of  starting  a  black  bear  from  a  cover 
of  thick  herbage  almost  below  our  feet.  Not 
one  of  the  party  happened  to  have  brought  a 
rifle,  and  the  animal  was  rapidly  out  of  reach 
of  our  revolvers,  as  he  raced  up  the  steep  side 
of  the  valley,  and  took  refuge  among  the 
crags  and  caves  of  limestone  at  the  top. 

Being  assured  that  the  Yellowstone  country 
•was  perfectly  safe,  that  we  should  probably 
see  no  Indians  at  all,  and  that  any  who  might 
cross  our  path  belonged  to  friendly  tribes,  and 
being  further  anxious  to  avoid  having  to  re- 
turn and  repeat  that  dismal  stage  journey,  we 
arranged  to  travel  through  the  ' '  Yellowstone 
Park,"  as  it  is  termed,  and  through  the 
mountains  encircling  the  head-waters  of  the 
Snake  River,  so  as  to  strike  the  railway  not 
far  from  where  we  had  left  it.  This  involved 
a  ride  of  somewhere  about  300  miles  through 
a  mountainous  region  still  in  its  aboriginal 
loneliness.  By  the  care  of  Lieutenant  Alison, 
the  quartermaster  of  the  Fort,  and  the  liber- 
ality of  the  army  authorities,  we  were  fur- 
bished with  horses  and  a  pack-train  of  mules, 
under  an  escort  of  two  men,  one  of  whom, 
Jack  Bean  by  name,  had  for  many  years 
lived  among  the  wilds  through  whieh  we. were 
io  pass,  as  trapper  and  miner  by  turns  ;  the 
other,  a  soldier  in  the  cavalry  detachment  at 
the  Fort,  went  by  the  name  of  "Andy,"  and 
acted  as  cook  and  leader  of  the  mules.  The 
smaller  the  party,  the  quicker  could  we  get 
through  the  mountains,  and  as  rapidity  of 
movement  was  necessary,  we  gladly  availed 
ourselves  of  the  quartermaster's  arrangements. 
Provisions  were  taken  in  quantity  sufficient 
for  the  expedition,  but  it  was  expected  we 
should  be  able  to  add  to  our  larder  an  occa- 
sional haunch  of  antelope  or  elk,  which  in 
good  time  we  did.  So,  full  of  expectation, 
we  bade  adieu,  not  without  regret,  to  our 
friends  at  Fort  Ellis,  and  set  out  upon  our 
quest. 

The  reader  may  be  reminded  here  that  the 
Yellowstone  River  has  its  head-waters  close 
to  the  watershed  of  the  continent,  among  the 
mountains  which,  branching  out  in  different 
directions,  include  the  ranges  of  the  Wind 
River,  Owl  Creek,  Shoshonee,  the  Tetons, 
and  other  groups  that  have  hardly  yet  re- 
ceived names.  Its  course  at  first  is  nearly 
north,  passing  out  of  the  lake  where  its 
upper  tributaries  collect  their  drainage, 
through  a  series  of  remarkable  canons  till 
about  the  latitude  of  Fort  Ellis,  after  which 
it  bends  round  to  the  eastward,  and  eventu- 


ally falls  into  the  Missouri.  We  struck  the 
river  just  above  its  lowest  canon  in  Montana. 
It  is  there  already  a  noble  stream,  winding 
through  a  broad  alluvial  valley,  flanked  with 
hills  on  either  side,  those  on  the  right  or 
east  bank  towering  up  into  one  of  the  noblest 
ranges  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Here,  as 
well  as  on  the  Madison,  we  met  with  illus- 
trations on  a  magnificent  scale  of  the  general 
law  of  valley  structure,  that  every  gorge 
formed  by  the  convergence  of  the  hills  on 
either  side  has  an  expansion  of  the  valley  into 
a  lake-like  plain  on  its  upper  side.  For  sev- 
eral hours  we  rode  along  this  plain  among 
mounds  of  detritus,  grouped  in  that  crescent- 
shaped  arrangement  so  characteristic  of  gla- 
cier-moraines. Large  blocks  of  crystalline 
rock,  quite  unlike  the  volcanic  masses  along 
which  we  were  traveling,  lay  tossed  about 
among  the  mounds.  One  mass  in  particular, 
lying  far  off  in  the  middle  of  the  -valley, 
looked  at  first  like  a  solitary  cottage.  Cross- 
ing to  it,  however,  we  found  it  to  be  only  a 
huge  erratic  of  the  usual  granitoid  gneiss. 
There  could  be  no  doubt  about  the  massive- 
ness  of  the  glaciers  that  once  filled  up  the 
•alley  of  the  Yellowstone.  The  moraine 
mounds  extend  across  the  plain  and  mount 
the  bases  of  the  hills  on  either  side.  The 
glacier  which  shed  them  must  consequently 
have  been  here  a  mile  or  more  in  breadth. 
All  the  way  up  the  valley  we  were  on  the 
outlook  for  evidence  as  to  the  thickness  of  the 
ice,  which  might  be  revealed  by  the  height  at 
which  either  transported  blocks  had  been 
stranded  or  a  polished  and  striated  surface 
had  been  left  upon  the  rocks  of  the  valley. 
We  were  fortunate  in  meeting  with  evidence 
of  both  kinds. 

I  shall  not  soon  forget  my  astonishment  on 
entering  the  second  canon.  We  had  made 
our  first  camp  someway  farther  down,  and 
before  striking  the  tent  in  the  morning  had 
mounted  the  kills  on  the  left  side  and  ob- 
served how  the  detritus  (glacial  detritus,  as 
we  believed  it  to  be)  had  been  rearranged 
and  spread  out  into  terraces,  either  by  the 
river  when  at  a  much  higher  level  than  that 
at  which  it  now  flows,  or  by  a  lake  which 
evidently  once  filled  up  the  broad  expansion 
of  the  valley  between  the  two  lowest  canons. 
We  were  prepared,  therefore,  for  the  discov- 
ery of  still  more  striking  proof  of  the  power 
and  magnitude  of  the  old  glaciers,  but  never 
anticipated  that  so  gigantic  and  perfect  a 
piece  of  ice-work  as  the  second  canon  was  in 
store  for  us.  From  a  narrow  gorge,  the  sides 
of  which  rise  to  heights  of  i.ooofeetor  more, 
the  river  darts  out  into  the  plain  which  We 
had  been  traversing.  The  rocky  sides  of 
this  ravine  are  smoothly  polished  and  striated 
from  the  bottom  up  apparently  to  the  top. 
Some  of  the  detached  knobs  of  schist  rising 
out  of  the  plain  at  the  mouth  of  the  canon 
were  as  fresh  in  their  ice-polish  as  if  the  gla- 
cier had  only  recently  retired  from  them.  The 
scene  reminded  me  more  of  the  valley  of  the 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


17 


Aar  above  the  Grimsel  than  of  any  other 
European  glacier-ground.  As  we  rode  up 
the  gorge,  with  here  and  there  just  room  to 
pass  between  the  rushing  river  and  the  rocky 
declivity,  we  could  trace  the  ice-worn  bosses 
of  schist  far  up  the  heights  till  they  lost  them- 
selves among  the  pines.  The  frosts  of  win- 
ter are  slowly  effacing  the  surfaces  sculptured 
by  the  vanished  glacier.  Huge  angular 
blocks  are  from  time  to  time  detached  from 
the  crags  and  join  the  piles  of  detritus  at  the 
bottom.  But  where  the  ice-polished  surfaces 
are  not  much  traversed  with  joints  they  have 
a  marvelous  power  of  endurance.  Hence 
they  may  have  utterly  disappeared  from  one 
part  of  a  rock-face  and  remain  perfectly  pre- 
served on  another  adjoining  part.  There 
could  be  no  doubt  now  that  the  Yellowstone 
glacier  was  massive  enough  to  fill  up  the 
second  canon  to  the  brim,  that  is  to  say,  it 
must  have  been  there  at  least  800  or  1,000 
feet  thick.  But  in  the  course  of  our  ascent 
we  obtained  proof  that  the  thickness  was 
even  greater  than  this,  for  we  found  that  the 
ice  had  perched  blocks  of  granite  and  gneiss 
on  the  sides  of  the  volcanic  hills  not  less  than 
1, 600  feet  above  the  present  plain  of  the 
river,  and  that  it  not  merely  filled  up  the 
main  valley,  but  actually  over-rode  the  bound- 
ing hills  so  as  to  pass  into  some  of  the  ad- 
jacent valleys.  That  glaciers  once  nestled  in 
these  mountains  might  have  been  readily  an- 
ticipated, but  it  was  important  to  be  able  to 
demonstrate  their  former  existence,  and  to 
show  that  they  attained  such  a  magnitude. 

The  glaciers,  however,  werj  after  all  an 
unexpected  or  incidental  kind  of  game  We 
were  really  on  the  trail  of  volcanic  produc- 
tions, and  devoted  most  of  our  time  to  the 
hunt  after  them.  The  valley  of  the  Yellow . 
stone  is  of  high  antiquity.  It  has  been  ex- 
cavated partly  out  of  and  nt  crystalline 
rocks,  partly  out  of  latter  stratified  forma- 
tions, and  partly  out  of  masses  of  lava  that 
have  been  erupted  during  a  long  succession 
of  ages.  Here  and  there  it  has  been  invaded 
by  streams  of  basalt,which  have  subsequently 
been  laboriously  cut  through  by  the  river.  In 
the  whole  course  of  our  journey  through  the 
volcanic  region  we  found  that  the  oldest  lav^s 
were  trachytes  and  their  allies,  while  the 
youngest  were  as  invariably  basalts,  the  in'er- 
val' between  the  eruption  of  the  two  kinds 
having  sometimes  been  long  enough  to  perm  it 
the  older  rocks  to  be  excavated  into  gorges 
before  the  emission  of  the  more  recent. 
Even  the  youngest,  however,  must  have  been 
poured  out  a  long  while  ago,  for  they  too 
have  been  deeply  trenched  by  the  slow 
erosive  power  of  running  water.  But  the 
volcanic  fires  are  not  yet  wholly  extinguished 
in  the  region.  No  lava,  indeed,  is  now  emit- 
ted, but  there  are  plentiful  proofs  of  the 
great  heat  that  still  exists  but  a  short  way 
below  the  surface. 

Quitting  the  moraine  grounds  of  the  Yel- 
lowstone Valley,  which  above  the  second 


canon  become  still  more  abundant  and  per- 
fect, we  ascended  the  tributary  known  as 
Gardiner's  River,  and  camped  in  view  of  the 
hot  springs.  The  first  glimpse  of  this  singu- 
lar scene,  c  aught  from  a  crest  of  the  dividing 
ridge,  recalls  the  termination  of  a  glacier.  A 
mass  of  snowy  whiteness  protrudes  from  a 
lateral  pine-clad  valley,  and  presents  a  steep 
front  to  the  narrow  plain  at  its  base.  The 
contrast  between  it  and  the  somber  hue  of  the 
pines  all  round  heightens  the  resemblance  of 
its  form  and  aspect  to  a  mass  of  ice.  It  is  all 
solid  rock,  however,  deposited  by  the  hot 
water  which,  issuing  from  innumerable  open- 
ings down  the  valley,  has  in  course  of  time 
filled  it  up  with  this  white  sinter.  Columns 
of  steam  rising  from  the  mass  bore  wit  'ess, 
even  at  a  distance,  to  the  nature  of  the  lo- 
cality. We  wandered  over  this  singular  ac- 
cumulation, each  of  us  searching  for  a  pool 
cool  enough  to  be  used  as  a  bath.  I  found 
one  where  the  water,  after  quitting  its  conduit, 
made  a  circuit  round  a  basin  of  sinter,  and  in 
so  doing  cooled  down  sufficiently  to  let  one 
sit  in  it.  The  top  of  the  mound,  and  indeed 
those  parts  of  the  deposit  generally  from 
which  the  water  has  retreated,  and  which  ara 
therefore  dry  and  exposed  to  the  weather,  are 
apt  to  crack  into  thin  shells  or  to  crumble 
into  white  powder.  But  along  the  steep  front, 
from  which  most  of  the  springs  escape,  the 
water  collects  into  basins  at  many  different 
levels.  Each  of  these  basins  has  the  most 
exquisitely  fretted  rim.  It  is  at  their  mar- 
gins that  evaporation  proceeds  most  vigor- 
ously and  deposition  takes  place  most 
rapidly,  hence  the  rim  is  being  constantly 
added  to.  The  colors  of  these  wavy,  frill-like 
borders  are  sometimes  remarkably  vivid.  The 
sinter,  where  moist  or  fresh,  has  a  delicate 
pink  or  salmon-colored  hue  tnat  deepen? 
along  the  edge  of  each  basin  into  rich  yel- 
lows, browns,  and  reds.  Where  the  water 
has  trickled  over  the  steep  front  from  basin 
to  basin,  the  sinter  has  assumed  smooth 
curved  forms  like  the  sweep  of  unbroken 
waterfalls.  At  many  points,  indeed,  as  one 
scrambles  along  that  front,  the  idea  of  a  series 
of  frozen  waterf  11s  rises  in  the  mind.  There 
are  no  eruptive  springs  or  geysers  at  this  lo- 
cality now,  though  a  large  pillar  of  sinter  on 
the  plain  below  probably  matks  the  site  of 
one.  Jack  assured  us  that  even  since  the 
time  he  had  first  been  up  here,  some  ten 
years  before,  the  water  had  perceptibly 
diminished. 

The  contrast  oetween  the  heat  below  and 
the  cold  above  ground  at  nights  was  some- 
times very  great.  We  used  to  rise  about 
daybreak,  and  repairing  to  the  nearest  brook 
or  river  for  ablution,  sometimes  found  a  crust 
of  ice  on  its  quiet  pools.  One  night,  indeed, 
the  thermometer  fell  to  19°,  and  my  sponge, 
lying  in  its  bag  inside  our  tent,  was  solidly 
frozen,  so  that  I  could  have  broken  it  with 
my  hammer.  The  camping-ground,  selected 
where  wood,  water,  and  forage  for  the  ani- 


18 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


mals  could  b?  had  together,  was  usually 
reached  by  about  three  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, so  that  we  had  still  several  hours  of 
daylight  for  sketching,  or  any  exploration 
which  the  locality  seemed  to  invite.  About 
sunset,  Andy's  fire  had  cooked  our  dinner, 
which  we  set  out  on  the  wooden  box  that  held 
our  cooking  implements.  Then  came  the 
camp-fire  stories,  of  which  our  companions 
had  a  sufficient  supply.  Andy,  in  particular, 
would  never  be  outdone.  Nothing  marvel- 
ous was  told  that  he  could  not  instantly  cap 
with  something  more  wonderful  still  that  had 
happened  in  his  own  experience.  What  dis- 
tances he  had  ridden  !  What  hairbreadth 
escapes  from  Indians  he  had  gone  through  ! 
What  marvels  of  nature  he  had  seen  !  And 
all  the  while,  as  the  tales  went  round  and  the 
fire  burnt  low  or  was  wakened  into  fiercer 
blaze  by  piles  of  pine  logij  hewn  down  by 
Jack's  diligent  axe,  the  stars  were  coming  out 
in  the  sky  overhead.  Such  a  canopy  to  sleep 
under  !  Wrapping  myself  round  in  my  trav- 
eling cloak,  I  used  to  lie  apart  for  a  while 
gazing  up  at  that  sky  so  clear,  so  sparkling,  so 
utterly  and  almost  incredibly  different  from 
the  bleared  cloudy  expanse  we  must  usually 
be  content  with  at  home.  Every  familiar 
constellation  had  a  brilliancy  we  never  see 
through  our  moisture-laden  atmosphere.  It 
seemed  to  swim  overhead,  while  behind  and 
beyond  it  the  heavens  were  aglow  with  stars 
that  are  hardly  ever  visible  here  at  all.  These 
quiet  half-hours  with  the  quiet  stars,  amid 
the  silence  of  the  primeval  forest,  are  among 
the  most  delightful  recollections  of  the  journey. 
Our  mules  were  a  constant  source  of  amuse- 
ment to  us  and  of  execration  to  Jack  and 
Andy.  Andy  led  the  party  with  his  loaded 
rifle  slung  in  front  of  his  saddle  ready  for  any 
service.  After  him  came  the  string  of  mules 
with  their  packs,  followed  by  Jack,  who  with 
volleys  of  abuse  and  frequent  applications  of 
a  leathern  saddle-strap,  endeavored  to  keep  up 
their  pace  and  preserve  them  in  line.  My 
friend  and  I  varied  our  position,  sometimes 
riding  on  ahead  and  having  the  pleasure  of 
first  starting  any  game  that  might  be  in  our 
way,  more  frequently  lingering  behind  to 
enjoy  quietly  some  of  the  delicious  glades  in 
the  forest.  But  we  could  never  get  far  out 
of  hearing  of  the  whack  of  Jack's  belt  or  the 
fierce  whoop  with  which  he  would  ever  and 
anon  charge  the  rearmost  mules  and  send 
them  scampering  on  till  every  spoon,  knife, 
and  tin-can  in  the  boxes  rattled  and  jingled. 
The  proper  packing  of  a  mule  is  an  art  that 
requires  considerable  skill  and  practice,  and 
Jack  was  a  thorough  master  of  the  craft. 
After  breakfast  he  used  to  collect  the  ani- 
mals, while  Andy  made  up  the  packs,  and 
the  two  together  proceeded  to  the  packing. 
Such  tugging  and  pulling  and  kicking  on 
the  part  of  men  and  mules  !  The  quad- 
rupeds, however,  whatever  their  feelings 
might  be,  gave  no  audible  vent  to 
them.  But  the  men  found  relief  in 


such  fusillades  of  swearing  as  I  had 
never  before  heard  or  even  imagined.  I 
ventured  one  morning  to  ask  wnether  the 
oaths  were  a  help  to  them  in  the  packing. 
Jack  assured  me  that  if  I  had  them  mules  to 
pack  he'd  give  me  two  days,  and  at  the  end 
of  that  he'd  bet  I'd  swear  myself  worse  than 
any  of  them.  Another  morning  Andy  was 
hanging  his  coat  on  a  branch  projecting  near 
the  camp-fire.  The  coat,  however,  fell  off 
the  branch  and  was,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
greeted  by  its  owner  with  an  execration.  It 
was  put  up  again,  and  again  slipped  down. 
This  was  repeated  two  or  three  times,  and 
each  time  the  language  was  getting  fiercer 
and  louder.  At  last,  when  the  operation  was 
successfully  completed,  I  asked  him  of  what 
use  all  the  swearing  at  the  coat  had  been. 
"  Wall,  boss,"  rejoined  he,  triumphantly, 
'  'don't  ye  see  the  darned  thing's  stuck  up 
now  ?"  This  I  felt  was,  under  the  circum- 
stances, an  unanswerable  argument.  West- 
ern teamsters  are  renowned  for  their  powers 
of  continuous  execration.  I  myself  heard  one 
swear  uninterruptedly  for  about  ten  minutes 
at  a  man  who  was  not  present,  but  who,  it 
seemed,  was  doomed  to  the  most  horrible  de- 
struction, body  and  soul,  as  soon  as  this 
bloodthirsty  ruffian  caught  sight  of  him  again, 
either  in  this  world  or  the  next. 

From  Gardiner's  River  we  made  a  d/itour 
over  a  long  ridge  dotted  with  ice-borne  blocks 
of  granite  and  gneiss,  and  crossed  the 
shoulder  of  Mount  Washburne  by  a  col  8,867 
feet  above  the  sea,  descending  once  more  to 
the  Yellowstone  River  at  the  head  of  the 
Grand  Canon.  The  whole  of  this  region 
consists  of  volcanic  rocks,  chiefly  trachytes, 
rhyolites,  obsidians  and  tuffs.  We  chose  as 
our  camping-ground  a  knoll  under  a  clump  of 
tall  pines,  with  a  streamlet  of  fresh  water 
flowing  below  it  in  haste  to  join  the  main 
river,  which,  though  out  of  sight,  was  audible 
in  the  hoarse  thunder  of  its  falls.  Impatient 
to  see  this  ravine,  of  whose  marvels  we  had 
heard  much,  we  left  the  mules  rolling  on  the 
ground  and  our  packers  getting  the  camp 
into  shape,  and  struck  through  the  forest  in 
the  direction  of  the  roar.  Unprepared  for 
anything  so  vast,  we  emerged  from  the  last 
fringe  of  the  woods  and  stood  on  the  brink 
of  the  great  chasm  silent  with  amazement. 

The  Grand  Canon  of  the  Yellowstone  is  a 
ravine  from  1,000  to  1,500  feet  deep.  Where 
its  shelving  sides  meet  at  the  bottom  there  is 
little  more  than  room  for  the  river  to  flow  be- 
tween them,  but  it  widens  irregularly  up- 
ward. It  has  been  excavated  out  of  a  series 
of  volcanic  rocks  by  the  flow  of  the  river  it- 
self. The  waterfalls,  of  which  there  are  here 
two,  have  crept  backward,  gradually  eating 
their  way  out  of  the  lavas  and  leaving  below 
them  the  ravine  of  the  Grand  Canon.  The 
weather  has  acted  on  the  sides  of  the  gorge, 
scarping  some  parts  into  percipitous  crags 
and  scooping  others  back,  so  that  each  side 
presents  a  series  of  projecting  bastions  and 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


19 


semi-circular  sloping  recesses.  The  dai  k  for- 
ests of  pine  that  fill  the  valley  above  sweep 
down  to  the  very  brink  of  the  gorge  on  both 
sides.  Such  is  the  g.neral  plan  of  the  place  ; 
but  it  is  hardly  possible  to  convey  in  words 
a  picture  of  the  impressive  grandeur  of  the 
scene. 

We  spent  a  long  day  sketching  and  wan- 
dering by  the  side  of  the  canon.  Scrambling 
to  the  edge  of  one  of  the  bastions  and  look- 
ing down,  we  could  see  the  river  far  below 
dwarfed  to  a  mere  silver  thread.  From  this 
abyss  the  crags  and  slopes  towered  up  in 
endless  variety  of  form,  and  with  the  weird- 
est mingling  of  colors.  Much  of  the  rock, 
especially  of  the  more  crumbling  slopes,  was 
of  a  pale  sulphur  yellow.  Through  this  ground- 
work harder  masses  of  dull  scarlet,  merging  in- 
to purple  and  crimson,  rose  into  craggy  knobs 
and  pinnacles,  or  shot  up  in  sheer  vertical 
walls.  In  the  sunlight  of  the  morning  the 
place  is  a  blaze  of  strange  color,  such  as  one 
can  hardly  see  anywhere  save  in  the  crater  of 
an  active  volcano.  But  as  the  day  wanes 
the  shades  of  evening,  sinking  gently  into  the 
depths,  blend  their  livid  tints  into  a  strange 
mysterious  gloom,  through  which  one  can 
still  see  the  white  gleam  of  the  rushing 
river  and  hear  the  distant  murmur  of  its  flow. 
Now  is  the  time  to  see  the  full  majesty  of  the 
canon.  Perched  on  an  outstanding  crag,  one 
can  look  down  the  ravine  and  mark  headland 
behind  headland  mounting  out  of  the  gather- 
ing shadows  and  catching  up  on  their  scarred 
fronts  of  yellow  and  red  the  mellower 
tints  of  the  sinking  sun.  And  above  all  lie 
the  dark  folds  of  pine  sweeping  along  the 
crests  of  the  precipices,  which  they  crown 
with  a  rim  of  somber  green.  There  are 
gorges  of  far  more  imposing  magnitude  in 
the  Colorado  Basin,  but  for  dimensions  large 
enough  to  be  profoundly  striking,  yet  not  too 
vast  to  be  taken  in  by  the  eye  at  once,  for  in- 
finite changes  of  picturesque  detail,  and  for 
brilliancy  and  endless  variety  of  coloring, 
there  are  probably  few  scenes  in  the  world 
more  impressive  than  the  Grand  Canon  of  the 
Yellowstone.  Such  at  least  were  the  feelings 
with  which  we  reluctantly  left  it  to  resume 
our  journey. 

The  next  goal  for  which  we  made  was  the 
Geyser  Basin  of  the  Firehole  River — a  ride  of 
two  days,  chiefly  through  forest,  but  partly 
over  bare  volcanic  hills.  Some  portions  of 
this  ride  led  into  open  park-like  glades  in  the 
forest,  where  it  seemed  as  if  no  human  foot 
had  ever  preceded  us  ;  not  a  trail  of  any  kind 
was  to  be  seen.  Here  and  there,  however, 
we  noticed  footprints  of  bears,  and  some  of 
the  trees  had  their  bark  plentifully  scratched 
at  a  height  of  three  or  four  feet  from  the 
ground,  where,  as  Jack  said,  ' '  the  bears  had 
been  sharpening  their  claws."  Deer  of  dif- 
ferent kinds  were  not  uncommon,  and  we 
shot  enough  to  supply  our  diminishing  larder. 
Now  and  then  we  came  upon  a  skunk  or  a 
badger,  and  at  night  we  could  hear  the 


mingled  bark  and  howl  of  the  wolves.  Andy's 
rifle  was  always  ready,  and  he  blazed  away  at 
everything.  As  he  rode  at  the  head  of  the 
party  the  first  intimation  those  behind  had  of 
any  game  afoot  was  the  crack  of  his  rifle,  fol- 
lowed by  the  immediate  stampede  of  the 
mules  and  a  round  of  execration  from  Jack. 
I  do  not  remember  that  he  ever  shot  anything 
save  one  wild  duck,  which  immediately  sank, 
or  at  least  could  not  be  found. 

Reaching  at  length  the  Upper  Geyser 
Basin,  we  camped  by  the  river  in  the  only 
group  of  trees  in  the  immediate  neighbor- 
hood that  had  not  been  invaded  by  the  sheets 
of  white  sinter  which  spread  out  all  round  on 
both  sides  of  the  river.  There  were  hot 
springs,  and  spouting  geysers,  and  steaming 
caldrons  of  boiling  water  in  every  direction. 
We  had  passed  many  openings  by  the  way 
whence  steam  issued.  In  fact,  in  some  parts 
of  the  route  we  seemed  to  be  riding  over  a 
mere  crust  between  the  air  above  and  a  huge 
boiling  vat  below.  At  one  place  the  hind 
foot  of  one  of  the  horses  went  through  this 
crust,  and  a  day  or  two  afterward,  repassing 
the  spot,  we  saw  it  steaming.  But  we  had 
come  upon  no  actual  eruptive  geyser.  In  this 
basin,  however,  there  is  one  geyser  which, 
ever  since  the  discovery  of  the  region  some 
ten  years  ago,  has  been  remarkably  regular  in 
its  action.  It  has  an  eruption  once  every 
hour  and  a  few  minutes  more.  The  kindly 
name  of  "Old  Faithful"  has  accordingly 
been  bestowed  upon  it.  We  at  once  betook 
ourselves  to  this  vent.  It  stands  upon  a 
low  mound  of  sinter,  which,  seen  from  a  little 
distance,  looks  as  if  built  up  of  successive 
sheets  piled  one  upon  another.  The  stratified 
appearance,  however,  is  due  to  the  same 
tendency  to  form  basins  so  marked  at  the  Hot 
Springs  on  Gardiner's  River.  These  basins 
are  bordered  with  the  same  banded,  brightly- 
colored  rims  which,  running  in  level  lines, 
give  the  stratified  look  to  the  mound.  On 
the  top  the  sinter  has  gathered  into  huge 
dome-shaped  or  coral-like  lumps,  in  the  midst 
of  which  lies  the  vent  of  the  geyser — a  hole 
not  more  than  a  couple  of  feet  or  so  in  dia- 
meter— whence  s  earn  constantly  issues. 
When  we  arrived  a  considerable  agitation 
was  perceptible.  The  water  was  surging 
up  and  down  a  short  distance  below,  and 
when  we  could  not  see  it  for  the  cloud  of  va- 
por its  gurgling  noise  remained  distinctly 
audible.  We  had  not  long  to  wait  before 
the  water  began  to  be  jerked  out  in  occa- 
sional spurts.  Then  suddenly,  with  a  tre- 
mendous roar,  a  column  of  mingled  water  and 
steam  rushed  up  for  120  feet  into  the  air,  fall- 
ing in  a  torrent  over  the  mound,  the  surface 
of  which  now  streamed  with  water,  while  its 
strange  volcanic  colors  glowed  vividly  in  the 
sunlight.  A  copious  stream  of  still  steaming 
water  rushed  off  by  the  nearest  channels  to 
the  river.  The  whole  eruption  did  not  last 
longer  than  about  five  minutes,  after  which 
the  water  sank  in  the  funnel,  and  the  same 


20 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


restless  gurgitation  was  resumed.  Again,  at 
the  usual  interval,  another  outburst  of  the 
same  kind  and  intensity  took  place. 

Though  the  most  frequent  and  regular  in 
its  movements,  "Old  Faithful"  is  by  no 
means  the  most  imposing  of  the  geysers  either 
in  the  volume  of  its  discharge  or  in  the  height 
to  which  it  erupts.  The  "Giant"  and  "Bee- 
hive" both  surpass  it,  but  are  fitful  in  their 
action,  intervals  of  several  days  occurring 
between  successive  explosions.  Both  of 
them  remained  tantalizingly  quiet,  nor  could 
they  be  provoked  by  throwing  stones  down 
their  throats  to  do  anything  for  our  amusement. 
The  "Castle  Geyser,"  however,  was  more  ac- 
commodating. It  presented  us  with  a  mag- 
nificent eruption.  A  far  larger  body  of 
water  than  at  "Old  Faithful"  was  hurled 
into  the  air,  and  continued  to  rise  for  more 
than  double  the  time.  It  was  interesting  to 
watch  the  rocket- like  projectiles  of  water  and 
steam  that  shot  through  and  out  of  the  main 
column,  and  burst  into  a  shower  of  drops  out- 
side. At  intervals,  as  the  energy  of  dis- 
charge oscillated,  the  column  would  sink  a 
little,  and  then  would  mount  up  again  as 
high  as  before,  with  a  hiss  and  roar  that  must 
have  been  audible  all  round  the  geyser  basin, 
while  the  ground  near  the  geyser  perceptibly 
trembled.  I  had  been  sketching  close  to  the 
spot  when  the  eruption  began,  and  in  three 
minutes  the  place  where  I  had  been  sitting 
was  the  bed  of  a  rapid  torrent  of  hot  water 
rushing  over  the  sinter  floor  to  the  river. 

Without  wearying  the  reader  with  details 
that  possess  interest  only  for  geologists,  I 
may  be  allowed  to  refer  to  one  part  of  the 
structure  of  these  geyser  mounds  which  is 
not  a  little  curious  and  puzzling — the  want  of 
sympathy  between  closely  adjacent  vents.  At 
the  summit  of  a  mound  the  top  of  the 
subterranean  column  of  boiling  water  can  be 
seen  about  a  yard  from  the  surface  in  a  con- 
stant state  of  commotion,  w'lile  at  the  base 
of  the  mound,  at  a  level  thirty  or  forty  feet 
lower,  lie  quiet  pools  of  steaming  water,  some 
of  them  with  a  point  of  ebullition  in  their 
center.  There  can  be  no  direct  connection 
between  these  pipes.  Their  independence 
is  still  more  strikingly  displayed  at  the  time 
of  eruption,  for  while  the  geyser  is  spouting 
high  into  the  air  these  surrounding  pools  go 
on  quietly  boiling  as  before.  It  is  now  gen- 
erally acknowledged  that  the  seat  of  eruptive 
energy  is  in  the  underground  pipe  itself,  each 
geyser  having  its  peculiarities  of  shape,  depth, 
and  temperature.  But  it  would  appear  also 
that  a:  least  above  this  seat  of  activity  there 
can  be  no  communication  even  between  con- 
tiguous vents  on  the  same  geyser  mound. 

Another  interesting  feature  of  the  locality 
k  the  tendency  of  each  geyser  to  build  up  a 
cylinder  of  sinter  round  its  vent.  A  few  of 
these  are  quite  perfect,  but  in  most  cases  they 
are  more  or  less  broken  down,  as  if  they  had 
been  blown  out  by  occasional  explosions  of 
exceptional  severity.  Usually  there  is  only 


one  cylindrical  excrescence  on  a  sinter  mound; 
but  in  some  cases  several  may  be  seen  with 
their  bases  almost  touching  each  other.  As 
the  force  of  the  geyser  diminishes  and  its 
eruptions  become  less  frequent  the  funnel 
seems  to  get  choked  up  with  sinter,  until  in 
the  end  the  hollow  cylinder  becomes  a  more  or 
less  solid  pillar.  Numerous  eminences  of  this 
kind  are  to  be  seen  throughout  the  region. 
Their  surfaces  are  white  and  crumbling.  They 
look,  in  fact,  so  like  pillars  of  salt  that  one 
could  not  help  thinking  of  Lot's  wife,  and 
wondering  whether  such  geyser  columns 
could  ever  have  existed  in  the  plains  of 
Sodom.  In  a  rainless  climate  they  might  last 
a  long  time.  But  the  sinter  here,  as  at  Gar- 
diner's River,  when  no  longer  growing  by 
fresh  deposits  from  the  escaping  water,  breaks 
p  into  thin  plates.  Those  parts  of  the  basin 
where  this  disintegration  is  in  progress  look 
as  if  they  had  been  strewn  with  pounded  oys- 
ter-shells. 

That  the  position  of  the  vents  slowly 
changes  is  indicated  on  the  one  hand  by  the 
way  in  which  trees  are  spreading  from  the 
surrounding  forest  over  the  crumbling  floor 
of  sinter,  and  on  the  other  by  the  number  of 
dead  or  dying  trunks  which  here  and  there 
rise  out  of  the  sinter.  The  volcanic  energy 
is  undoubtedly  dying  out  Yet  it  remains 
still  vigorous  enough  to  impress  the  mind 
with  a  sense  of  the  potency  of  subterranean 
heat.  From  the  upper  end  of  the  basin 
the  eye  ranges  round  a  wide  area  of  bare  sin- 
ter plains  and  mounds,  with  dozens  of  col- 
umns of  steam  rising  on  all  sides;  while  even 
from  among  the  woods  beyond  an  occasional 
puff  of  white  vapor  reveals  the  presence  of 
active  vents  in  the  neighboring  valley.  A 
prodigious  mass  of  sinter  has,  in  the  course 
of  ages,  been  laid  down,  and  the  form  of  the 
ground  has  been  thereby  materially  changed. 
We  made  some  short  excursions  into  the  for- 
est, and  as  far  as  we  penetrated  the  same  floor 
of  sinter  was  everywhere  traceable.  Here 
and  there  a  long-extinct  geyser  mound  was 
nearly  concealed  under  a  covering  of  vegeta- 
tion, so  that  it  resembled  a  gigantic  ant-hill  ; 
or  a  few  steaming  holes  about  its  sides  or  sum- 
mit would  bring  before  us  some  of  the  latest 
stages  in  geyser  history. 

One  of  the  most  singular  sights  of  this 
interesting  region  is  the  volcanoes,  or 
mud  geysers.  We  visited  one  of  the 
best  of  them,  to  which  Jack  gave  the 
name  of  "the  Devil's  Paint  pot."  It  lies 
near  the  margin  of  the  Lower  Geyser  Basin. 
We  approached  it  from  below,  surmounting 
by  the  way  a  series  of  sinter  mounds  dotted 
with  numerous  vents  filled  with  boiling 
water.  It  may  be  described  as  a  huge  vat 
of  boiling  and  variously-colored  mud,  about 
thirty  yards  in  diameter.  At  one  side  the 
ebullition  was  violent,  and  the  grayish-white 
mud  danced  up  into  spurts  that  were  jerked 
a  foot  or  two  into  the  air.  At  the  other  side, 
however,  the  movement  was  much  less  vigor- 


GEOLOGICAL  ^KETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


21 


ous.  The  mud  there  rose  slowly  into  blister- 
like  expansions,  a  foot  or  more  in  diameter, 
which  gradually  swelled  up  till  they  burst, 
and  a  liitle  of  the  mud  with  some  steam  was 
tossed  up,  after  which  the  bubble  sank  down 
and  disappeared.  But  nearer  the  edge  on 
this  pasty  side  of  the  caldron  the  mud  ap- 
peared to  become  more  viscous,  as  well  as 
more  brightly-colored  green  and  red,  so  that 
the  blisters  when  formed  remained,  and  were 
even  enlarged  by  expansion  from  within,  and 
the  ejection  of  more  liquid  mud  over  their 
sides.  Each  of  these  little  cones  was  in  fact 
a  miniature  volcano  with  its  circular  crater 
atop.  Many  of  them  were  not  more  than  a 
foot  high.  Had  it  been  possible  to  transport 
one  unbroken,  we  could  easily  have  removed 
it  entire  from  its  platform  of  hardened  mud. 
It  would  have  been  something  to  boast  of, 
that  we  had  brought  home  a  volcano.  But, 
besides  our  invincible  abhorrence  of  the  van- 
dalism that  would  in  any  way  disturb  these 
natural  productions,  in  our  light  marching 
order  the  specimen,  even  had  we  been  barba- 
rous enough  to  remove  it,  would  soon  have 
been  reduced  to  the  condition  to  which  the 
jolting  of  the  mules  had  brought  our  biscuits 
— that  of  fine  powder.  We  remained  for 
hours  watching  the  formation  of  these  little 
volcanoes,  and  thinking  of  Leopold  von  Buch 
and  the  old  exploded  "crater  of  elevation" 
theory.  Each  of  these  cones  was  neverthe- 
less undoubtedly  a  true  crater  of  elevation. 

Willingly  would  we  have  lingered  longer  in 
this  weird  district.  But  there  still  lay  a  long 
journey  before  us  ere  we  again  could  reach 
the  confines  of  civilization  ;  we  had  therefore 
to  resume  the  march.  The  Firehole  River, 
which  flows  through  the  Geyser  Basins,  and 
whose  banks  are  in  many  places  vaporous 
heaps  of  sinter,  the  very  water  of  the  river 
steaming  as  it  flows  along,  is  the  infant  Mad- 
ison River,  which  we  had  crossed  early  in  the 
journey,  far  down  below  its  lowest  canon,  on 
our  way  to  Fort  Ellis.  Our  route  now  lay 
through  its  upper  canon,  a  densely-timbered 
gorge  with  picturesque  volcanic  peaks  mount- 
ing up  here  and  there  on  either  side  far 
above  the  pines.  Below  this  defile  the  valley 
opens  out  into  a  little  basin,  filled  with  forest 
to  the  brim,  and  then,  as  usual,  contracts 
again  toward  the  opening  of  the  next  canon. 
We  forded  the  river,  and.  mounting  the 
ridges  on  its  left  side,  looked  over  many 
square  miles  of  undulating  pine  tops — a  vast 
dark  green  sea  of  foliage  stretching  almost 
up  to  the  summits  of  the  far  mountains.  At 
last,  ascending  a  short  narrow  valley  full  of 
beaver  dams,  we  reached  a  low  flat  watershed 
seven  thousand  and  sixty-three  feet  above 
the  sea,  and  stood  on  the  "great  divide" 
of  the  continent.  The  streams  by  which  we 
had  hitherto  been  wandering  all  ultimately 
find  their  way  into  the  Missouri  and  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico;  but  the  brooks  we  now  en- 
countered were  some  of  the  infant  tributaries 
of  the  Snake  or  Columbia  River,  which  drains 


into  the  Pacific.  Making  our  way  across  to 
Henry's  Fork,  one  of  the  feeders  of  the  Snake 
River,  we  descended  its  course  for  a  time. 
It  led  us  now  through  open  moor-like  spaces, 
and  then  into  seemingly  impenetrable  forest. 
For  some  time  the  sky  toward  the  west 
had  been  growing  more  hazy  as  we  ap- 
proached, and  we  no.v  found  out  the  cause. 
The  forest  was  on  fire  in  several  places.  At 
one  part  of  the  journey  we  had  just  room  to 
pass  between  the  blazing,  crackling  trunks 
and  the  edge  of  the  river.  For  easier  pass- 
age we  forded  the  stream,  and  proceeded 
down  its  left  bank,  but  found  that  here  and 
there  the  fire  had  crossed  even  to  that  side. 
Most  of  these  forest  fires  result  from  the 
grossest  carelessness.  Jack  was  particulary 
cautious  each  morning  to  see  that  every 
ember  of  our  camp  fire  was  extinguished,  and 
that  by  no  chance  could  the  dry  grass  around 
be  kindled,  for  it  might  smolder  on  and 
slowly  spread  for  days,  until  it  eventually  set 
the  nearest  timber  in  a  blaze.  We  used  to 
soak  the  ground  with  water  before  resuming 
our  march.  These  forest  fires  were  of  course 
an  indication  that  human  beings,  either  red 
or  white,  had  been  on  the  ground  not  long 
before  us.  But  we  did  not  come  on  their 
trail.  One  morning,  however — it  was  the 
last  day  of  this  long  march — we  had  been 
about  a  couple  of  hours  in  the  saddle.  The 
usual  halt  had  been  made  to  tighten  the 
packs,  and  we  were  picking  our  way  across 
a  dreary  plain  of  sage-brush  on  the  edge  of 
the  great  basalt  flood  of  Idaho,  when  Jack, 
whose  eyes  were  like  a  hawk's  for  quickness, 
detected  a  cloud  of  dust  far  to  the  south  on 
the  horizon.  We  halted,  and  in  a  few  min- 
utes Jack  informed  us  that  it  was  a  party 
of  horsemen,  and  that  they  must  be  Indians 
from  their  way  of  riding.  As  they  came 
nearer  we  made  out  that  there  were  four 
mounted  Indians  with  four  led  horses.  Jack 
dismounted  and  got  his  rifle  ready.  Andy, 
without  saying  a  wo-d,  did  the  same.  They 
covered  with  their  pieces  the  foremost  rider, 
who  now  spurred  on  rapidly  in  front  of  the 
rest,  gesticulating  to  us  with  a  rod  or  whip 
he  carried  in  his  hand.  ' '  They  are  friendly, " 
remarked  Jack,  and  down  went  the  rifles. 
The  first  rider  came  up  to  us,  and  after  a 
palaver  with  Jack,  in  which  we  caught  here 
and  there  a  word  of  broken  English,  we  learnt 
that  they  were  bound  for  a  council  of  Indians 
up  in  Montana. 

Four  more  picturesque  savages  could  not 
have  been  desired  to  complete  our  reminis- 
cences of  the  Far  West.  Every  bright  color 
was  to  be  found  somewhere  in  their  costumes. 
One  wore  a  bright  blue  coat  faced  with 
scarlet;  another  had  chosen  his  cloth  of  the 
tawniest  orange.  Their  straw  hats  were 
encircled  with  a  band  of  down  and  surmounted 
with  feathers.  Scarlet  braid  embroidered 
with  beads  wound  in  and  out  all  over  their 
dress.  Their  rifles  (for  every  one  of  them 
was  fully  armed)  were  cased  in  richly-broidered 


22 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


canvas  covers,  and  were  slung  across  the 
front  of  their  saddles,  ready  for  any  emergency. 
One  of  them,  the  son  of  a  chief,  whose  father 
Jack  had  known,  carried  a  twopenny  looking- 
glass  hanging  at  his  saddle-bow.  We  were 
glad  to  have  seen  the  noble  savage  in  his 
war-paint  among  his  native  wilds.  Our  sat- 
isfaction, however,  would  have  been  less  had 
we  known  then  what  we  only  discovered  when 
we  got  down  into  Utah,  that  a  neighboring 
tribe  of  the  Utes  were  in  revolt,  that  they  had 
murdered  the  agent  and  his  people,  and  killed 
a  United  States  officer  and  a  number  of  his 
soldiers,  who  had  been  sent  to  suppress  the 
rising,  and  that  there  were  rumors  of  the  dis- 
affection spreading  into  other  tribes.  We 
saluted  our  strangers  with  the  Indian  greeting, 
"  How  ! "  whereupon  they  gravely  rode  round 
and  formally  shook  hands  with  each  of  us. 
Jack,  h  wever,  had  no  faith  in  Indians,  and 
after  they  had  left  us,  and  were  scampering 
along  the  prairie  in  a  bee-line  due  north,  he 
still  kept  his  eye  on  them  till  they  entered  a 
valley  among  the  mountains,  and  were  lost  to 
sight.  In  half  an  hour  afterward  another 
much  larger  cloud  of  dust  crossed  the  mouth 
of  a  narrow  valley  down  which  we  were  moving. 
Waiting  a  little  unperceived,  to  give  the  party 
time  to  widen  their  distance  from  us,  we 
were  soon  once  more  upon  the  great  basalt 
plain. 

The  last  section  of  our  ride  proved  to  be  in 
a  geological  sense  one  of  the  most  interesting 
parts  of  the  whole  journey.  We  found  that 
the  older  trachytic  lavas  of  the  hills  had  been 
deeply  trenched  by  lateral  valleys,  and  that 
all  these  valleys  had  a  floor  of  the  black  basalt 
that  had  been  poured  out  as  the  last  of  the 
molten  materials  from  the  now  extinct  vol- 
canoes. There  were  no  visible  cones  or  vents 
from  which  these  floods  of  basalt  could  have 
proceeded.  We  rode  for  hours  by  the  mar- 
gin of  a  vast  plain  of  basalt,  stretching 
southward  and  westward  as  far  as  the  eye 
could  «each.  It  seemed  as  if  the  plain  had 
been  once  a  great  lake  or  sea  of  molten  rock 
which  surged  along  the  base  of  the  hills,  en- 
tering every  valley,  and  leaving  there  a  solid 
floor  of  bare  black  stone.  We  camped  on  this 
basalt  plain  near  some  springs  of  clear  cold 
water  which  rise  close  to  its  edge.  Wander- 
ing over  the  bare  hummocks  of  rock,  on  many 
of  .•  hich  not  a  vestige  of  vegetation  had  yet 
taken  root,  I  realized  with  vividness  the  truth 
of  an  assertion  made  first  by  Richthofen, 
but  very  generally  neglected  by  geologists, 
that  our  modern  volcanoes,  such  as  Vesuvius 
or  /Etna.,  present  us  with  by  no  means  the 
grandest  type  of  volcanic  action,  but  rather 
belong  to  a  time  of  failing  activity.  There 
have  been  periods  of  tremendous  volcanic  en- 
ergy, when,  instead  of  escaping  from  a  local 
vent,  like  a  Vesuvian  cone,  the  lava  has 
found  its  way  to  the  surface  by  innumerable 
fissures  opened  for  it  in  the  solid  crust  of  the 
globe  over  thousands  of  square  miles.  I 
felt  that  the  structure  of  this  and  the  other 


volcanic  plains  of  the  Far  West  furnish  the 
true  key  to  the  history  of  the  basaltic  pla- 
teaux of  Ireland  and  Scotland,  which  had 
been  an  enigma  to  me  for  many  years. 

At  last  we  reached  the  railway  that  had 
been  opened  only  a  week  or  two  before.  Andy 
rode  on  ahead  to  the  terminus,  to  intimate 
that  we  wished  to  be  picked  up.  In  a  short 
while  the  train  came  up,  and  as  we  sat  there  in 
the  bare,  desolate  valley,  the  engine  slowed  at 
sight  of  us.  Our  two  companions  were  now  to 
turn  back  and  take  a  shorter  route  to  Fort  El- 
lis, but  would  be  ten  days  on  the  march.  We 
parted  from  them  not  without  regret.  Rough, 
but  kindly,  they  had  done  everything  to  make 
the  journey  a  memorably  pleasant  one  to  us. 
We  took  our  seats  in  the  car,  and  from  the 
window,  as  we  moved  a^ay,  caught  the  last 
glimpse  of  our  cavalcade,  Andy  in  front  with 
a  riderless  horse,  and  Jack  in  the  rear  with 
another. 


IV. 

THE  LAVA-FIELDS  OF   NORTH- 
WESTERN  EUROPE. 

From  the  earliest  times  of  human  tradition 
the  basin  of  the  Mediterranean  has  been  the 
region  from  which  our  ideas  of  volcanoes  and 
volcanic  action  have  been  derived.  When  the 
old  classical  mythology  passed  away  and  men 
began  to  form  a  more  intelligent  conception 
of  a  nether  region  of  fire,  it  was  from  the 
burning  mountains  of  that  basin  that  the  facts 
were  derived  which  infant  philosophy  sought 
to  explain.  Pindar  sang  of  the  crimson 
floods  of  fire  that  rolled  down  from  the  sum- 
mit of  ;£tna  to  the  sea  as  the  buried 
Typhceus  struggled  under  his  mountain  load. 
Strabo,  with  matter-of-fact  precision  and 
praiseworthy  accuracy,  described  the  erup- 
tions of  Sicily  and  the  ^Lolian  Islands,  and 
pointed  out  that  Vesuvius,  though  it  had 
never  been  known  as  an  active  volcano,  yet 
bore  unequivocal  marks  of  having  once  been 
corroded  by  fires  that  had  eventually  died  out 
from  want  of  fuel.  In  later  centuries,  as  the 
circle  of  human  knowledge*  and  experience 
widened,  it  has  still  been  by  the  Mediterra- 
nean type  that  the  volcanic  phenomena  of 
other  countries  have  been  judged.  When  a 
geologist  thinks  or  writes  of  volcanoes  and 
volcanic  action,  it  is  the  structure  and  pro- 
ducts  of  such  mountains  as  JEtna.  and  Vesu- 
vius that  are  present  to  his  mind.  Nowhere 
over  the  whole  surface  of  the  globe  have 
eruptions  been  witnessed  different  in  kind 
from  those  of  the  Mediterranean  vents, 
j  though  varying  greatly  in  degree.  And 
I  hence  even  among  those  who  have  specially 
,  devoted  themselves  to  the  study  of  volcanoes 
there  has  been  a  tacit  assumption  that  from 
the  earliest  times  and  in  all  countries  of  the 
I  world  where  volcanic  outbreaks  have  occurred, 
it  has  been  from  local  vents  like  those  of 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


23 


,  the  /Eolian   Islands,   the  Thlegraean 
Fields,  or  the  Greek  Archipelago. 

If  one  were  to  assert  that  this  assumption 
is  probably  erroneous,  that  the  type  of  vol 
canic  "cones  and  craters"  has  not  been  ii 
every  geological  age  and  all  over  the  earth's 
surface  the  prevalent  one  ;  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  is  the  less  portentous,  though  possibly 
always  the  more  frequent  type  of  volcanic  ac- 
tion, and  belongs  perhaps  to  a  feebler  or  waning 
degree  of  volcanic  excitement — these  state- 
ments would  berec.ived  by  most  European  ge- 
ologists with  incredulity,  if  not  with  some  more 
pronounced  form  of  dissent.  Yet  I  am  con- 
vinced that  they  are  well  founded,  and  that  a 
striking  illustration  of  their  truth  is  supplied 
by  the  greatest  of  all  the  episodes  in  the  vol- 
canic history  of  Europe,  that  of  the  basalt- 
plateaux  of  the  northwest. 

It  is  now  some  twelve  years  since  Richt 
hofen  pointed  out  that  on  the  Pacific  slope  of 
North  America  there  is  evidence  of  the  emis- 
sion of  vast  floods  of  lava  without  the  form- 
ation of  cones  and  craters.  Geologists  inter- 
ested in  these  matters  may  remember  with 
what  destructive  energy  Scrope  reviewed 
that  writer's  Natural  System  of  Volcanic 
Rocks;  how  he  likened  it  to  the  old 
crude  notions  that  had  been  in  vogue 
in  his  own  younger  days,  and  which  a 
study  of  the  classical  district  of  Auvergne  had 
done  so  much  to  dispel :  how  he  ridiculed 
what  he  regarded  as  "fanciful  ideas "  and 
"untenable  distinctions,"  which  it  was  "a 
miserable  thing"  to  find  still  taught  in  min- 
ing schools  abroad.  My  own  reverence  for 
the  teaching  of  so  eminent  a  master  and  so 
warm  hearted  a  friend  led  me  to  acquiesce 
without  question  in  the  dictum  of  the  author 
oi  Considerations  on  Volcanoes.  Having 
rambled  over  Auvergne  with  his  admirable 
sections  and  descriptions  in  my  hand,  I  knew 
his  contention  as  to  the  removal  of  cones  and 
craters  by  denudaticn .  and  the  survival  of 
more  or  less  fragmentary  plateaux  once  con- 
nected with  true  cones  to  be  undoubtedly 
correct  with  respect  at  least  to  that  region. 
Nevertheless  there  were  features  of  former 
volcanic  action  on  which  the  phenomena  of 
modern  volcanoes  seemed  to  me  to  throw 
very  little  light.  In  particular,  the  vast 
number  of  fissures  which  in  Britain  had  been 
filled  with  basalt  and  now  formed  the  well- 
known  and  abundant  "dykes,"  appeared 
hardly  to  connect  themselves  with  any  known 
phase  of  volcanism.  The  area  over  which 
these  dykes  can  be  traced  is  probably  not  less 
than  100,000  square  miles,  for  they  occur 
from  Yorkshire  to  Orkney,  and  from  Donegal 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Tay.  As  they  pierce 
formations  of  every  age,  including  the  Chalk, 
as  they  traverse  even  the  largest  faults  and 
cross  from  one  group  of  rocks  into  another 
without  interruption  or  deflection,  as  they 
become  more  numerous  toward  the  great 
basaltic  plateaux  of  Antrim  and  the  Inner 
Hebrides,  and  as  they  penetrate  the  older 


portions  of  these  plateaux,  I  inferred  that 
the  dykes  probably  belonged  to  the  great 
volcanic  period  which  witnessed  the  outburst 
of  these  western  basalts.  Further  research 
has  fully  confirmed  this  inference.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  outpouring  of  these 
great  floods  of  lava  of  which  .  he  hills  of  An- 
trim, Mull,  Morven,  Skye,  Faroe,  an  l  part 
of  Iceland  are  merely  surviving  fragments 
and  the  extravasation  of  these  thousands  of 
dykes  are  connected  manifestations  of  vol- 
canic energy  during  the  Tertiary  period. 

But  this  association  of  thin  nearly  level 
sheets  of  basalt  piled  over  each  other  to  a 
depth  of  sometimes  3,000  feet,  with  lava- 
filled  fissures  sometimes  200  miles  distant 
from  tnem,  presented  difficulties  which  in 
the  light  of  modern  volcanic  action  remained 
insoluble.  The  wonderfully  persistent  course 
and  horizontality  of  the  basalts  with  the  ab- 
sence or  paucity  of  interstratified  tuffs,  and 
the  want  of  any  satisfactory  evidence  of  the 
thickening  and  uprise  of  the  basalts  toward 
what  might  be  supposed  to  be  the  vents  of 
eruption,  were  problems  which  again  and 
again  I  attempted  vainly  to  solve.  Nor  so 
long  as  the  incubus  of  "  cones  and  craters  " 
lies  upon  one's  mind  does  the  question  ad- 
mil  of  an  answer.  A  recent  journey  in 
Western  America  has  at  last  lifted  the  mist 
from  my  geological  vision.  Having  traveled 
for  many  leagues  over  some  of  the  lava-fields 
of  the  Pacific  slope,  I  have  been  enabled  to 
realize  the  conditions  of  volcanism  described 
by  Richthofen,  and,  without  acquiescing  in 
all  his  theoretical  conclusions,  to  judge  of  the 
reality  of  the  distinction  which  he  rightly 
drew  between  "massive  eruptions  "  and  or- 
dinary volcanoes  with  cones  and  craters. 
Never  shall  I  forget  an  afternoon  in  the 
autumn  of  last  year  upon  the  great  Snake 
River  lava  desert  of  Idaho.  It  was  the  last 
day  of  a  journey  of  several  hundred  miles 
through  the  volcanic  region  of  the  Yellow- 
stone and  Madison.  We  had  been  riding 
for  two  days  over  fields  of  basaft,  level 
as  lake-bottoms  among  the  valleys,  and  on 
:he  morning  of  the  last  day,  after  an 
interview  with  an  armed  party  of  Indians 
]it  was  only  a  few  days  before  the  disastrous 
expedition  of  Major  Thornburgh,  and,  un-  . 
cnown  to  us,  the  surrounding  tribes  were  al- 
ready in  a  ferment),  we  emerged  from  the 
mountains  upon  the  great  sea  of  black  lava 
which  seems  to  stretch  inimitably  westward. 
With  minds  kee'nly  excited  by  the  incidents 
of  the  journey,  we  rode  for  hours  by  the  side 
of  that  apparently  boundless  pla>n.  Here  and 
here  a  trachytic  spur  projected  from  the  hills, 
iucceeded  now  and  then  by  a  valley  up  which 
he  black  flood  of  lava  would  stretch  away 
nto  the  high  grounds.  It  was  as  if  the  great 
plaiii  had  been  filled  with  molten  rock 
rhich  had  kept  its  level  and  wound  in  and 
ut  along  the  plains  and  promontories  of  the 
mountain-slopes  as  a  sheet  of  water  would 
lavt  done.  Copious  springs  and  streams 


24 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


which  issue  from  the  mountains  are  soon 
lost  under  the  arid  basalt.  The  Snake  River 
itself,  however,  has  cut  out  a  deep  gorge 
through  the  basalt  down  into  the  trachytic 
lavas  underneath,  but  winds  through  the  des- 
\  ert  without  watering  it.  The  precipitous 
walls  of  the  canon  show  that  the  plain  is  cov- 
ered by  a  succession  of  parallel  sheets  of  ba- 
salt to  a  depth  of  several  hundred  feet.  Here 
and  there,  I  was  told,  streams  that  have 
crossed  from  the  hills  and  flowed  underneath 
the  lava  desert  issue  at  the  base  of  the  canon 
walls,  and  swell  the  Snake  River  on  its  way 
to  the  Pacific.  The  resemblance  of  the  hori- 
zontal basalt  sheets  of  this  region  to  those 
with  which  I  was  familiar  at  home  brought 
again  vividly  before  my  mind  the  old  problem 
of  our  Miocene  dykes  and  Richthofen's  re- 
jected type  of  "massive"  or  fissure  eruptions. 
I  looked  round  in  vain  for  any  central  cone 
from  which  this  great  sea  of  basalt  could 
have  flowed.  It  assuredly  had  not  come  from 
the  adjacent  mountains,  which  consisted  of 
older  and  very  different  lavas,  round  the  worn 
flanks  of  which  the  basalt  had  eddied.  A  few 
solitary  cinder  cones  rose  at  wide  intervals 
from  the  basalt  plains,  as  piles  of  scorire 
sometimes  do  from  the  vapor  vents  on  the 
surface  of  a  Vesuvian  lava-stream,  and  were 
as  unequivocally  of  secondary  origin.  Riding 
hour  after  hour  among  these  ariJ  wastes, 
I  became  convinced  that  all  volcanic 
phenomena  are  not  to  be  explained  by 
the  ordinary  conception  of  volcanoes,  but  that 
there  is  another  and  grander  type  of  volcanic 
action,  where,  instead  of  issuing  from  a  local 
vent,  whether  or  not  along  a  line  of  fissure, 
and  piling  up  a  cone  of  lava  and  ashes  around 
it,  the  molten  rock  has  risen  in  many  fissures, 
accompanied  by  the  discharge  of  little  or  no 
fragmentary  material,  and  has  welled  forth 
so  as  to  flood  the,  lower  ground  with  success- 
ive horizontal  sheets  of  basalt.  Recent  re- 
newed examinatian  of  the  basalt  plateaux  and 
associated  dykes  in  the  west  of  Scotland  has 
assureffme  that  this  view  of  their  origin  and 
connection,  which  first  suggested  itself  to  my 
mind  on  the  lava-plains  of  Idaho,  furnishes 
the  true  key  to  their  history. 

The  date  of  these  lava-floods  of  the  Snake 
River  is  in  a  geological  sense  quite  recent. 
They  have  been  poured  over  the  bottoms  of 
the  present  valleys,  sealing  up  beneath  sheets 
of  solid  stone,  river-beds  and  lake-floors  with 
their  layers  of  gravel  and  silt.  The  surface 
of  the  lava  is  in  many  places  black  and  bare, 
as  if  it  had  cooled  only  a  short  time  ago.  Yet 
there  has  been  time  for  the  excavation  of  the 
Snake  River  canon  to  a  depth  of  700  feet 
through  the  basalt  floor  of  the  plain.  In  so 
arid  a  climate,  however,  the  denudation  of 
this  floor  must  be  extremely  slow.  Much  of 
the  plain  is  a  verdureless  waste  of  loose  sand 
and  dust  which  has  gathered  into  shifting 
dunes.  Save  in  the  gorges  laid  open  by  the 
main  river  and  some  of  its  tributaries,  hardly 
any  sections  have  yet  been  cut  into  the  volcan- 


ic floor.  Dykes  and  other  protrusions  of  basalt 
occur  on  the  surrounding  hills,  but  the  chief 
fissures  or  vents  of  emission  are  still  no  doubt 
buried  beneath  the  lava  that  escaped  from 
them. 

In  Northwestern  Europe,  however,  the 
basalt  sheets  were  erupted  as  far  back  as  I 
Miocene  or  Oligocene  times.  Since  then, 
exposed  to  the  many  vicissitudes  of  geological 
history — subterranean  movement  and  changes 
of  climate,  with  the  whole  epigene  army  of 
destructive  agencies,  air,  rain,  frost,  streams, 
glaciers,  and  ice- sheets — the  volcanic  pla- 
teaux, trenched  by  valleys  two  or  three 
thousand  feet  deep  and  a  mile  or  more  in 
breadth,  and  stripped  bodily  off  many  a 
square  mile  of  ground  over  which  they  once 
spread,  have  been  so  scarped  and  cleft  that 
their  very  roots  have  been  laid  bare.  Viewed 
in  the  light  of  the  much  younger  basalts  of 
the  Western  Territories  of  North  America, 
their  history  becomes  at  last  intelligible  and 
more  than  ever  interesting.  We  are  no 
longer  under  the  supposed  necessity  of  find- 
ing volcanic  cones  vast  enough  to  have 
poured  forth  such  widespread  floods  of  basalt. 
The  sources  of  the  molten  rock  are  to  be 
sought  in  those  innumerable  dykes  which  run 
across  Britain  from  sea  to  sea,  and  which  in 
this  view  of  their  relations  at  once  fall  into 
their  place  in  the  volcanic  history  of  the  time. 

No  more  stupendous  series  of  volcanic 
phenomena  has  yet  been  discovered  in  any 
part  of  the  globe.  We  are  first  presented 
with  the  fact  that  the  crust  of  the  earth  over 
an  area  which  in  the  British  Islands  alone 
amounted  to  probably  not  less  than  100,000 
square  nrles,  but  which  was  only  part  of  the 
far  more  extensive  region  that  included  the 
Faroe  Islands  and  Iceland,  was  rent  by  innu- 
merable fissures  in  a  prevalent  east  and  west 
or  southeast  and  northwest  direction.  These 
fissures,  whether  due  to  sudden  shocks  or 
slow  disruption,  were  produced  with  such 
'rresistible  force  as  to  preserve  their  linear 
character  and  parallelism  through  rocks  of 
the  most  diverse  nature,  and  even  across  old 
dislocations  having  a  throw  of  many  thousand 
feet.  Yet  so  steadily  and  equably  did  the 
fissuring  proceed  over  this  enormous  area, 
that  comparatively  seldom  was  there  any 
ertical  displacement  of  the  sides.  We  rarely 
meet  with  a  fissure  which  has  been  made  a 
rue  fault  with  an  upthrow  and  downthrow 
side. 

The  next  feature  is  the  rise  of  molten  basalt 
up  these  thousand  of  fissures.  The  most 
voluminous  streams  of  lava  that  have  issued 
rom  any  modern  volcanic  cone  appear  but  ns 
a  minor  manifestation  of  volcanic  activity 
when  compared  with  the  filling  of  those 
countless  rents  over  so  wide  a  region.  Min- 
ng  operations  in  the  Scottish  coal-fields  have 
shown  that  the  dykes  do  not  always  reach  the 
surface.  In  all  parts  of  the  country,  too, 
examples  may  be  observed  of  breaks  in  the 
continuity  of  dykes.  The  same  dyke  van- 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


Ishes  for  an  interval  and  reappears  on  the 
same  line,  but  is  doubtless  continuous  under- 
neath. What  proportion  of  the  dykes  ever 
communicated  with  the  surface  at  the  time 
of  their  extravasation  is  a  question  that  may 
perhaps  never  be  answered.  It  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  a  considerable  number  of  them 
did  not  overflow  above  ground  even  far  to  the 
east  of  the  main  and  existing  outflows.  But 
so  extensive  has  been  the  subsequent  denuda- 
tion that  all  trace  of  such  superficial  emis- 
sion has  been  removed.  The  general 
surface  of  the  country  has  been  lowered  by 
sub-aerial  waste  several  hundred  feet  at  least, 
and  the  dykes  now  protrude  as  hard  ribs  of 
rock  across  the  hills. 

Traced  westward  the  dykes  increase 
in  abundance,  till  at  last  they  reach 
the  great  basaltic  plateaux.  MacCulloch 
long  ago  sketched  them  in  Skye,  rising 
through  the  Jurassic  rocks  and  merging  into 
the  overlying  sheets  of  basalt.  Similar  sec- 
tions occur  in  the  other  islands  and  in  the 
north  of  Ireland.  The  lofty  mural  escarp- 
ments presented  by  the  basalt  plateaux  once 
extended  far  beyond  the  limits  to  which  they 
have  now  been  reduced.  The  platform  from 
which  they  have  been  removed  shows  in  its 
abundant  dykes  the  fissures  up  which  the 
successive  discharges  of  lava  rose  to  the  sur- 
face, where  they  overflowed  in  wide  level 
sheets  like  those  still  so  fresh  and  little  eroded 
in  Western  North  America. 

That  there  were  intervals  between  success- 
ive outpourings  of  basalt  is  indicated  by  the 
occasional  interstratification  of  seams  of  coal 
and  shale  between  the  different  flows.  These 
partings  contain  a  fragmentary  record  of  the 
vegetation  which  grew  on  the  neighboring 
hills,  and  which  may  even  have  sometimes 
found  a  foothold  on  the  crumbling  surface  of 
the  basalt  floor  until  overwhelmed  by  fresh 
floods  of  lava.  Not  a  trace  of  marine  organ- 
isms has  anywhere  been  found  among  these 
interstratifications.  There  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  the  volcanic  eruptions  were  all 
sub-aerial.  Sheet  after  sheet  was  poured 
forth  over  the  wide  valley  between  the  mount- 
ains of  Donegal  and  the  Outer  Hebrides  on 
the  cne  side,  and  those  of  the  northeast  of 
Ireland  and  the  west  of  Scotland  on  the 
other,  until  the  original  surface  had  been 
buried  in  some  places  3,000  feet  beneath  vol- 
canic ejections. 

I  believe  that  the  most  stupendous  out- 
pourings of  lava  in  geological  history  have 
been  effected  not  by  the  familiar  type  of 
conical  volcano,  but  by  these  less  known 
fissure-eruptions.  Both  types  are  of  course 
only  manifestations  in  different  degrees  of  the 
same  volcanic  energy.  It  may  be  said,  indeed, 
that  both  are  fissure-eruptions,  for  the  more 
important  examples  of  cones  and  craters  are 
no  doubt  placed  linearly  on  lines  of  fissure. 
It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  "massive" 
or  fissure  type  belongs  wholly  to  former  geo- 
logical periods.  In  particular,  one  is  disposed 


to  inqiure  whether  the  great  Icdandic  lava- 
floods  of  1783 — the  most  voluminous  on  rec- 
ord— as  well  as  some  of  the  recent  eruptions 
in  that  island,  may  not  have  been  connected 
rather  with  the  opening  of  wide-reaching  fis- 
sures than  with  the  emissions  of  a  single  vol- 
canic cone.  The  reality  and  importance  of 
the  grander  phase  of  volcanism  marked  by 
fissure  eruptions  have  been  recognized  by 
some  of  the  able  geologists  who  in  recent 
years  have  explored  the  Western  States  and 
Territories  of  the  American  Union.  But 
they  have  not  yet  received  due  acknowledg- 
ment on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  where  the 
lesser  type  of  cones  and  craters  has  been 
regarded  as  that  by  which  all  volcanic  mani- 
festations must  be  judged.  We  are  fortu- 
nate in  possessing  in  the  northwest  of  Europe 
so  magnificent  an  example  of  fissure-eruptions 
and  one  which  has  been  so  dissected  by  de- 
nudation that  its  whole  structure  can  be  in- 
terpreted. The  grand  examples  on  the 
Pacific  slope  of  America  have  yet  to  be  worked 
out  in  detail,  and  will  no  doubt  cast  much 
fresh  light  on  the  subject,  more  especially 
upon  those  phenomena  of  which  in  Europe 
the  traces  have  been  removed  by  denudation. 
But  the  other  continents  also  are  not  without 
their  illustrations.  The  basaltic  plateaux  of 
Abyssinia  and  the  "  Deccan  traps  "  of  India 
probably  mark  the  sites  of  some  of  the  great 
fissure-eruptions  which  have  produced  the 
lava-fields  of  the  Old  World.  In  their  recent 
admirable  rhuml  of  the  Geology  of  India, 
Messrs.  MedlScott  and  Blanford  describe  the 
persistent  horizon  tality  of  the  vast  basalt 
sheets  of  the  Deccan,  the  absence  of  any 
associated  volcanic  cones  or  the  least  trace  of 
them  in  that  region,  and  the  abundance  of 
dykes  in  the  underlying  platform  of  older 
rocks,  where  it  emerges  from  beneath  the 
volcanic  plateau.  They  confess  the  difficulty 
of  explaining  the  origin  of  such  enormous 
outpourings  of  basalt  by  reference  to  any 
modern  volcanic  phenomena.  Their  descrip- 
tions of  these  Indian  Cretaceous  lava-floods 
might,  however,  be  almost  literally  applied  to 
the  Miocene  plateaux  of  Northwestern  Europe 
and  to  the  Pliocene  or  recent  examples  of 
Western  North  America. 


V. 

THE    SCOTTISH     SCHOOL    OF    GE- 
OLOGY.* 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Uni- 
versity education  in  Scotland,  we  are  to-day 
met  to  begin  the  duties  of  a  Chair  specially 
devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  Geology  and 
Mineralogy.  Though  Science  is  of  no  country 


The  Inaugural  Lecture  at  the  opening  of  the 
Class  of  Geology  and  Mineralogy  in  the  University  of 
Edinburgh,  6th  November,  1881. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  these  achieve- 
ments  are  of  the  past,  that  the  measure  of 
the  early  promise  at  the  beginning  of  this 
century  has  been  but  scantily  fulfilled  in 
Scotland,  and  that  the  state  of  the  science 
among  us  here,  instead  of  being  in  advance, 
is  rather  behind  the  time.  And  thus  I  dwell 
now  on  the  example  of  our  predecessors 
•colorings  which  finally  gives  the 
neutral  tint  of  science  This  is  in  a  marked  \  what  that  example  really  was,  we  may  be 
degree  true  of  Geology.  Each  country,  ,  stimulated  to  follow  it.  The  same  hills  and 
where  any  part  of  the  science  has  been  more  j  valleys,  crags  and  ravines,  remain  around  us 
particularly  studied,  has  furnished  its  local  j  which  jave  these  great  men  their  inspiration, 
names  to  the  general  nomenclature,  and  its  ' 
rocks  have  sometimes  served  as  ypes  from 
which  the  rocks  of  other  regions  have  been 


nor  kin,  it  yet  bears  some  branches  which 
take  their  hue  largely  from  the  region  whence 
they  sprang,  or  where  they  have  been  most 
sedulously  nurtured.  Such  local  colorings 
need  not  be  deprecated,  since  they  are  both 
inevitable  and  useful.  They  serve  to  bring 
out  the  peculiarities  of  each  climate,  or  land, 
or  people,  and  it  is  the  blending  of  all  these 


and  still  preach  to  us  the  lessons  whicb  they 
were  the  first  to  understand. 

The  period  during  which  the  distinctively 
Scottish  School  of  Geology  rose  and  flourished 
may  be  taken  as  included  between  the  years 
1780  and  1825 — a  brief  half-century.  Pre- 
vious to  that  time  Geology,  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word,  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  ex- 
isted. Steno,  indeed,  more  than  a  hundred 
years  before,  had  clearly  shown,  from  the  oc- 
currence of  the  remains  of  plants  and  animals 
embedded  in  the  solid  rocks,  that  the  present 
was  not  the  original  order  of  things,  that 
there  had  been  upheavals  of  the  sea  into  dry 
land  and  depressions  of  the  land  beneath  the 
sea,  by  the  working  of  forces  lodged  within 
the  earth,  and  that  the  memorials  of  these 
changes  were  preserved  for  us  in  the  rocks. 
Seventy  years  later  another  writer  of  the 
Italian  school,  Lazzaro  Moro,  adopting  and 
extending  the  conclusions  of  Steno,  pointed 
to  the  evidence  that  the  surface  of  the  earth 
is  everywhere  worn  away,  and  is  repaired  by 
the  upheaving  powers  of  earthquakes,  but 
for  which  the  mountains  and  all  the  dry  land 
would  at  last  be  brought  beneath  the  level  of 
the  waves. 

But  none  of  these  desultory  researches, 
interesting  and  important  though  they  were 
as  landmarks  in  the  progress  of  science,  bore 
immediate  fruit  in  any  broad  and  philosophic 
outline  of  the  natural  history  of  the  globe. 
Men  were  still  trammeled  by  the  belief  that 
the  date  of  the  creation  of  the  world  and  its 
inhabitants  could  not  be  placed  farther  back 
than  some  five  or  six  thousand  years,  that 
this  limit  was  fixed  for  us  in  Holy  Writ,  and 
that  every  new  fact  must  receive  an  interpre- 
tation in  accordance  with  such  limitation. 
They  were  thus  often  driven  to  distort  the 
facts  or  to  explain  them  away.  If  they  ven- 
tured to  pronounce  for  a  natural  and  obvious 
interpretation,  they  laid  themselves  open  to 
the  charge  of  impiety  and  atheism,  and  might 
bring  down  the  unrelenting  vengeance  of  the 
Church. 

Such  was  the   state   of  inquiry  when   the 

the  onward  march  of  thi  science.  I  do  this  j  Scottish  Geological  School  came  into  being, 
in  no  vainglorious  spirit,  nor  with  any  wish  I  The  founder  of  that  school  was  James  Hut- 
to  exalt  into  prominence  a  mere  question  of  ton,  a  man  of  a  singularly  original  and  active 
nationality.  Science  knows  no  geographical  mind,  who  was  born  at  Edinburgh  in  1726. 
or  pclitical  limits.  Nor,  though  we  mav  be  and  .lied  there  in  1797.  Educated  for  th» 
proud  of  wliat  has  been  achieved  for  Geology  medical  profession,  but  possessed  of  a  sma/ 
in  this  Jittle  kin  dom,  cm  we  for  a  moment  fortune,  which  gave  him  leisure  O  follow  hib 


classified  and  described.  The  very  scenery 
of  the  country,  reacting  on  the  minds  of  the 
early  observers,  has  sometimes  influenced 
their  observations,  and  has  thus  left  an  im- 
press on  the  general  progress  of  the  science. 
As  we  enter  to-day  upon  a  new  phase  in  the 
cultivation  of  Geology  he  e,  it  seems  most 
fitting  that  we  should  look  back  for  a  little 
At  the  past  development  of  the  science  in  this 
part  of  the  British  Islands. 

There  was  a  time,  still  within  the  memory 
of  living  men,  when  a  handful  of  ardent 
original  observers  here  in  Edinburgh  car- 
ried geological  speculation  and  research  to 
such  a  height  as  to  found  a  new,  and,  in  the 
•end,  a  dominant  school  of  Geology.  The 
history  of  the  Natural  Sciences,  like  that  of 
Philosophy,  has  been  marked  by  epochs  of 
activity  and  intervals  of  quiescence.  One 
genius,  perhaps,  has  arisen  and  kindled  in 
other  minds  the  flame  that  burned  so  brightly 
in  his  own.  A  time  of  vigorous  research  has 
ensued,  but  as  the  personal  influence  that 
evoked  it  has  waned  a  period  of  feebleness 
and  torpor  has  been  apt  to  ensue,  and  to  last 
until  the  advent  of  some  new  awakening. 
Such  oscillations  of  mental  energy  have  an 
importance  and  a  significance  far  beyond  the 
narrow  limits  of  the  country  or  city  in  which 
they  may  have  been  manifested.  They  form 
part  of  that  long  and  noble  record  of  the 
struggle  of  man  with  the  forces  of  nature, 
-and  deserve  the  thoughtful  consideration  of 
.all  who  have  joined  or  who  contemplate  join- 
in  ?  in  that  struggle.  I  propose  on  the  pres- 
ent occasion  to  sketch  the  story  of  one  of 
these  periods  of  vigorous  originality,  which 
had  its  rising  and  its  setting  in  this  city — the 
«tory  of  what  may  be  called  the  Scottish 
School  of  Geology.  I  wish  to  place  before 
you,  in  as  clear  a  light  as  I  can,  the  work 
which  was  accomplished  by  the  founders  of 
that  school,  that  you  may  see  how  greatly  it 
has  influenced,  and  is  now  even  influencing, 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOMF  AND  ABROAD. 


27 


favorite  pursuits,  he  eventually  devoted  him- 
self to  the  study  of  Mineralcgy.  But  It  was 
not  merely  as  rare  or  interesting  objects,  nor 
<ven  as  parts  of  a  mineralogical  system,  that 
he  dealt  with  minerals.  They  seemed  to 
suggest  to  him  constant  questions  as  to  the 
earlier  conditions  of  our  planet,  and  he  thus 
was  gradually  led  into  the  wider  fields  of 
Geology  and  Physical  Geography.  Quietly 
working  in  his  study  here,  a  favorite  member 
of  a  brilliant  circle  of  society,  which  included 
such  men  as  Black,  Cullen,  Adam  Smith,  and 
Clerk  of  Eldin,  and  making  frequent  excur- 
sions to  gather  fresh  data  and  test  the  truth 
of  his  deductions,  he  at  length  matured  his 
immortal  Theory  of  the  Earth,  and  published 
it  in  1785.  Associated  with  Hutton,  rather 
as  a  friend  and  enthusiastic  admirer  than  as 
an  independent  observer,  was  John  Playfair, 
Professor  of  Natural  Philosophy  in  this  Uni- 
versity, by  whose  graceful  exposition  the 
doctrines  of  Hutton  were  most  widely  made 
known  to  the  world.  His  classic  Illustrations 
cf  the  Huttonian  Theory  is  one  of  the  most 
delightful  books  of  science  in  our  language — 
clear,  elegant,  and  vivacious  —  a  model  ot 
scientific  description  and  argument,  which  I 
would  earnestly  recommend  to  your  notice. 
Sir  James  Hall,  another  of  this  illustrious 
little  band,  had  one  of  the  most  inventive 
minds  which  have  ever  taken  up  the  pursuit 
of  science  in  this  country.  His  merits  have 
never  yet  been  adequately  realized  by  his 
•countrymen,  though  they  are  better  appre- 
ciated in  Germany  and  in  France.  He  was, 
in  fact,  the  founder  of  Experimental  Geol- 
ogy, since  it  was  he  who  first  brought 
geological  speculation  to  the  test  of  actual 
physical  experiment.  This  he  accomplished 
in  a  series  of  ingenious  researches,  whereby 
he  corroborated  some  of  the  disputed  parts  of 
the  doctrines  cf  his  master,  Hutton.  These 
•were  the  three  chief  leaders  of  the  Scottish 
School ;  but  to  their  number,  as  worthy  but 
less  celebrated  associates,  we  must  not  omit 
to  add  the  names  of  Mackenzie,  Webb  Sey- 
mour, and  Allan. 

It  would  lead  me  far  beyond  the  allotted 
hour  of  lecture  to  attempt  any  adequate  sum- 
mary of  the  work  achieved  by  each  of  these 
early  pioneers  of  the  science.  It  will  be 
enough  for  my  present  purpose  to  sketch 
what  were  the  leading  characteristics  of  this 
Scottish  School,  and  what  claim  it  has  to  be 
remembered,  not  by  us  only,  but  by  all  to 
whom  Geology  is  the  subject  either  of  serious 
stud_y  or  of  pleasant  recreation. 

Born  in  a  land  of  "  mountain  and  flood," 
the  geology  of  the  Scottish  School  naturally 
dealt  in  the  main  with  the  inorganic  part  of 
the  science,  with  the  elemental  forces  which 
have  burst  through  and  cracked  and  worn 
down  the  crust  of  the  earth.  It  asked  the 
mountains  of  its  birthplace  by  what  chain  of 
events  they  had  been  upheaved,  how  their 
rocks,  so  gnarled  and  broken,  had  come  into 
being,  how  valleys  and  glens  had  been  im- 


pressed  upon  the  surface  of  the  land,  and  how 
the  various  strata  through  which  these  wind 
had  been  step  by  step  built  up.  It  encoun- 
tered no  rocks  like  those  which  had  arrested 
the  notice  of  the  early  Italian  geologists, 
charged  with  fossil  shells,  corals,  and  bones 
of  fish,  such  as  still  lived  in  the  adjoining 
seas,  and  which  at  once  suggested  the  former 
presence  of  the  sea  over  the  land.  Neither 
did  it  meet  with  deposits  showing  abundant 
traces  of  ancient  lakes,  rivers,  and  land-sur- 
faces, each  marked  by  the  presence  of  ani- 
mal and  plant  remains,  like  those  which  set 
Steno  and  Moro  thinking.  The  rocks  of 
Scotland  are,  as  a  whole,  unfossiliferpus.  It 
was  therefore  rather  with  the  records  of  phy. 
sical  events,  unaided  by  the  testimony  of  OP 
ganic  remains,  that  the  Scottish  geologists 
had  to  deal.  Their  task  was  to  unravel  the 
complicated  processes  by  which  the  rocky 
crust  of  the  earth  has  been  built  up,  and  by 
which  the  present  varied  contour  of  the 
earth's  surface  has  been  produced — to  ascer- 
tain, in  short,  from  a  study  of  the  existing 
economy  of  the  world,  what  has  been  the 
physical  history  of  our  planet  in  earlier  ages. 
The  marvelous  story  told  by  the  organic 
remains  in  the  earth's  crust  had  not  yet  been 
in  any  way  conjectured. 

Hitherto,  while  men  had  been  accustomed 
to  believe  that  the  earth  was  but  some  6,000 
years  old,  they  sought  in  the  rocks  beneath 
and  around  them  evidence  only  of  six  days' 
creation  or  of  the  flood  of  Noah.  Each  new 
cosmological  system  was  based  upon  that 
belief,  and  tried  in  various  ways  to  reconcile 
the  Bibliotl  narrative  with  fanciful  interpre- 
tation of  the  facts  of  Nature.  It  was  reserved 
for  Hutton  to  declare,  for  the  first  time,  that 
the  rocks  around  us  reveal  no  trace  of  the 
beginning  of  things.  He,  too,  first  clearly  and 
persistently  proclaimed  the  great  fundamental 
truth  of  Geology,  t.at  in  seeking  to  interpret 
the  past  history  of  the  earth  as  chronicled  in 
the  rocks,  we  must  use  the  present  economy 
of  nature  as  our  guide.  In  our  investigations, 
"no  powers,  "he  says,  "are  to  be  employed 
that  are  not  natural  to  the  globe,  no  action  to 
be  admitted  of  except  those  of  which  we  know 
the  principle."  "Nor  are  we  to  proceed  in 
feigning  causes  when  those  appear  insufficient 
which  occur  in  our  experience."  The  changes 
of  the  past  must  be  investigated  in  the  light 
of  similar  changes  now  in  operation.  This 
was  a  guiding  principle  of  the  Scottish  School, 
and  through  their  influence  it  has  become  a 
guiding  principle  of  modern  Geology;  though, 
under  the  name  of  "  Uniformitarianism,"  it 
has  unquestionably  been  pushed  to  an  unwar- 
rantable length  by  some  of  the  later  followers 
of  Hutton.  The  appeal  to  Nature  in  her 
present  condition  for  light  in  geological  in- 
quiry was  a  watchword  of  the  Huttonians, 
and  in  the  hands  of  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
of  their  number,  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  has  been 
largely  influential  in  the  establishment  of 
Geology  as  a  truly  observational  science. 


23 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


There  were  two  directions  in  which  Hutton 
labored,  and  in  each  of  which  he  and  his 
followers  constantly  traveled  by  the  light  of  the 
present  order  of  nature — viz.,  the.  investiga- 
tions of  (i)  changes  which  have  transpired 
beneath  the  surface  and  within  the  crust  of 
the  earth,  and  (2)  changes  which  have  been 
effected  on  the  surface  itself. 

That  the  interior  of  the  earth  was  hot,  that  it 


had  been  erupted  through  other  stony  masses; 
and  that  the  dark  trap- rocks,  or  "whinstones" 
of  Scotland,  were  likewise  of  igneous  origin. 
When  the  sedimentary  rocks  were  studied  in 
the  broad  way  which  was  followed  by  Hutton 
and  his  associates,  many  proofs  appeared  of 
ancient  convulsions  and  re-formations  of  the 
earth's  surface.  It  was  found  that  among 
the  hills  the  strata  were  often  on  end,  while 


the  seat  ot  powerful  forces,  by  which :  on  the  plains  they  were  gently  inclined;  and 


solid  rocks  had  been  rent  open  and  wide 
regions  of  land  convulsed,  were  familiar  facts, 
attested  by  every  volcano  and  earthquake. 
These  phenomena  had  been  for  the  most  part 
regarded  as  abnormal  parts  of  the  system  of 
nature  ;  by  many  writers,  indeed,  as  well  as 
by  the  general  mass  of  mankind,  they  were 
looked  upon  as  Divine  judgments,  specially 
sent  for  the  punishment  and  reformation  of 
the  human  species.  To  Hutton,  pondering 
over  the  great  organic  system  of  the  world,  a 
deeper  meaning  was  necessary.  He  felt,  as 
Steno  and  Moro  had  done,  that  the  earth- 
quake and  volcano  were  but  parts  of  the  gen- 
eral mechanism  of  our  planet.  But  he  saw, 
•  also,  that  they  were  not  the  only  exhibitions 
of  the  pote..-}"  of  sub:erraneau  agencies,  that 
in  fact  they  were  only  partial  and  perhaps 
even  secondary  manifestations  of  thi  influ- 
ence of  the  great  internal  heat  of  the  globe, 
and  that  the  full  import  of  that  influence 
could  not  be  understood  unkss  careful  study 
were  given  also  to  the  structuie  of  the  rocky 
crust  of  the  earth.  Accordingly,  he  set  him- 
self for  years  patiently  to  gather  and  medi- 
tate over  data  whica  would  throw  light  upon 
that  structure  and  its  history.  The  moun- 
tains and  glens,  river-valleys  and  sea-coasts 
of  his  native  country  were  diligently  tra- 
versed by  him,  every  journey  adding  some- 
thing to  his  store  of  materials,  and  enabling 
him  to  arrive  continually  at  wider  views  of 
the  general  economy  of  nature.  At  one  time 
we  find  him  in  a  Highland  glen  searching  for 
proofs  of  a  hypothesis  which  he  was  con- 
vinced must  be  true,  and,  at  their  eventual 
discovery,  breaking  forth  into  such  gleeful 
excitement  that  his  attendant  gillies  con- 
cluded he  must  certainly  have  hit  upon  a 
mine  of  gold.  At  another  time,  we  read  of 
him  boating  with  his  friends  Playfair  and 
Hall  along  the  wild  cliffs  ot  Berwickshire, 
again  in  search  of  confirmation  to  his  views, 
and  finding,  to  use  the  words  of  Playfair. 
"palpable  evidence  of  one  of  the  most  extra- 
ordinary and  important  facts  in  th<*  natural 
history  of  the  earth."  As  a  result  of  his 
wanderings  and  reflection,  he  concluded  that 
the  great  mass  of  the  rocks  which  form  the 
visible  part  of  crust  of  the  earth  was  formed 
i  nder  the  sea  as  sand,  gravel,  and  mud  are 
laid  down  there  now;  that  these  ancient  sedi- 
ments were  consolidated  by  subterranean  heat, 
and,  by  paroxysms  of  the  same  force,  were 
fractured,  contorted,  and  upheaved  into  dry 
land.  He  found  that  portions  of  the  rocks 
had  even  been  in  a  fused  state;  that  granite 


the  inference  was  deduced  by  Hutton  that 
the  former  series  must  have  been  broken  up 
by  subterranean  commotions  before  the  ac- 
cumulation of  the  latter,  which  was  derived 
from  its  ddbris.  He  conjectured  that  the  later 
rocks  would  be  found  actually  resting  upon 
the  edges  of  the  older.  His  search  for,  and 
discovery  of,  this  relation  at  the  Siccar  Point, 
on  the  Berwickshire  coast,  are  well  described 
by  his  biographer  Playfair,  who  accompanied 
him,  and  who,  dwelling  on  the  impression 
which  the  scene  had  left  upon  himself,  adds, 
"The  mind  seemed  to  grow  giddy  by  looking 
so  far  into  the  abyss  of  time;  and  while  we 
listened  with  earnestness  and  admiration  tc 
the  philosopher  who  was  now  unfolding  to  us 
the  order  and  series  of  th  >,e  wonderful  events, 
we  became  sensible  ho-,  much  farther  reason 
may  sometimes  go  than  imagination  can  ven- 
ture to  follow.  Sir  James  Hall  afterward, 
by  a  series  of  characteristically  ingenious  ex- 
periments, showed  how  the  rocks  of  that 
coast-line  may  have  been  contorted  by  move- 
ments in  the  crust  of  the  earth  under  great 
superincumbent  pressure. 

Hutton  contended  for  the  former  molten 
condition  of  granite  and  of  many  other  crys- 
talline masses.  He  maintained  that  the 
combined  influence  of  subterranean  heat  and 
pressure  upon  sedimentary  rocks  could  con- 
solidate and  mineralize  them,  and  even  con- 
vert them  into  crystalline  masses.  He  may 
thus  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the 
modern  doctrine  of  metamorphism,  or  the 
gradual  transformation  of  marine  sediments 
into  the  gnarled  and  rugged  gneiss  and  schist 
of  which  mountains  are  built  up.  Lit  me 
quote  the  eulogium  passed  upon  this  part  of 
his  work  in  an  essay  by  M.  Daubree,  which 
eleven  years  ago  was  crowned  with  a  prize  by 
the  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Paris  :  "  By  an 
idea  entirely  new,  the  illustrious  Scottish 
philosopher  showed  the  successive  co-opera- 
tion of  water  and  the  internal  heat  of  the 
globe  i  i  the  formation  of  the  same  rocks.  It 
is  the  mark  of  genius  to  unite  in  one  common 
origin  phenomena  very  different  in  their 
nature."  "  Hutton  explains  the  history  of 
the  globe  with  as  much  simplicity  as  grand- 
eur. Like  most  men  of  genius,  indeed,  who 
have  opened  up  new  paths,  he  exaggerated 
the  extent  to  which  his  conceptions  could  be 
applied.  But  it  is  fcnpossible  not  to  view 
with  admiration  the  profound  penetration 
and  the  strictness  of  induction  of  so  clear- 
sighted a  man  at  a  time  when  exact  observa- 
tions had  been  so  few,  he  being  the  first  to 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


recognize  the  simultaneous  effect  of  water 
and  heat  in  the  formation  of  rocks,  in  imag- 
ining a  system  which  embraces  the  whole 
physical  system  of  the  globe.  He  established 
principles  which,  in  so  far  as  they  are  funda- 
mental, are  now  universally  admitted." 

While  Hutton  fortified  his  convictions  by 
constant  appeals  to  the  rocks  themselves,  his 
disciple  Hall  tested  their  truth  in  the  labor- 
atory. It  is  the  boast  of  Scotland  to  have 
led  the  way  in  the  application  of  chemical 
and  physical  experiment  to  the  elucidation  of 
geological  history.  It  was  objected  to  Hut- 
ton's  theory  that,  if  basalt  and  similar  rocks 
had  ever  been  in  a  melted  state,  they  would 
now  have  been  seen  in  the  condition  of  glass 
or  slag,  and  not  with  the  granular  or  crys- 
talline texture  which  they  actually  possess. 
Hall  demolished  this  objection  by  melting 
basalt  into  a  glass,  and  then,  by  slow  cool- 
ing, reconverting  it  into  a  granular  substance 
more  or  less  resembling  the  original  rock. 
Hutton  had  maintained  that  under  enormous 
pressure,  such  as  he  conceived  must  exist 
beneath  the  ocean,  or  deep  within  the  crust 
of  the  earth,  even  limestone  itself  might  be 
melted  without  losing  its  carbonic  acid.  This 
was  ridiculed  by  his  opponents,  on  whom  he 
retorted  that  they  "judged  of  the  great 
operations  of  the  mineral  kingdom  from 
having  kindled  a  fire  and  looked  into  the 
bottsm  of  a  little  crucible."  Hall,  however, 
to  whom  fire  and  crucible  were  congenial 
implements,  resolved  to  put  the  question  to 
the  test  of  experiment,  and  though,  out  of 
deference  to  his  master,  he  delayed  his  task 
until  after  the  death  of  the  latter,  he  did  at 
last  succeed  in  converting  limestone,  under 
•various  great  pressures,  into  a  kind  of  mar- 
ble, and  even  in  reducing  it  to  complete 
fusion,  in  which  state  it  acted  powerfully  on 
other  rocks.  He  concluded  his  elaborate 
essay  on  this  subject  with  these  words  : 
"This  single  result  affords,  I  conceive,  a 
strong  presumption  in  favor  of  the  solution 
which  Dr.  Hutton  has  advanced  of  all  the 
geological  phenomem  ;  for  the  truth  of  the 
most  doubtful  principle  which  he  has  assumed 
lias  thus  been  established  by  direct  experi- 
ment." 

Though  they  saw  clearly  the  proofs  which 
the  rocks  afford  us  of  former  revolutions, 
neither  Hutton  nor  his  friends  had  any  con- 
ception of  the  existence  of  the  great  series  of 
fossiliferous  formations  which  has  since  been 
unfolded  by  the  abors  of  later  observers — 
that  voluminous  record  in  which  the  history 
of  life  upon  this  planet  has  been  preserved. 
They  spoke  of  "Alpine  schistus,"  "pri- 
mary" or  "secondary  "  strata,  as  if  the  geo- 
logical past  had  consisted  but  of  two  great 
ages — the  second  replete  w  th  traces  of  the 
destruction  of  the  first.  "The  ruins  of  an 
•older  world,"  said  Hutton,  "are  visible  in 
the  present  structure  of  our  planet."  He 
knew  nothing  of  the  long,  but  then  undis- 
covered, succession  of  such  "ruins,"'  each 


marking  a  wide  interval  of  time.  Neverthe- 
less for  the  establishment  of  the  great  truths 
which  Hutton  labored  to  confirm,  such  knowl- 
edge was  not  necessary.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  most  needful  that  the  significance  of 
that  discordance  between  the  older  and  newer 
strata  which  Hutton  recognized  should  be 
persistently  proclaimed.  And  the  Huttoni- 
ans,  in  spite  of  their  limited  range  of  knowl- 
edge and  opportunity,  saw  its  value,  and 
held  by  it. 

2.  But  it  was  not  merely,  nor  even  per- 
haps chiefly,  for  their  exposition  of  the 
structure  and  history  of  the  rocks  under  our 
feet  that  the  geologists  of  the  Scottish  School 
deserve  to  be  held  in  lasting  remembrance. 
They  could  not,  indeed,  have  advanced  as 
far  as  they  did  in  expounding  former  condi- 
tions of  the  planet,  had  they  not,  with  singu- 
lar clearness,  perceived  the  order  and  system 
of  change  which  is  in  progress  over  the  sur- 
face of  the  globe  at  the  prete.it  day.  It  was 
their  teaching  which  led  men  to  recognize 
the  harmony  and  co-operation  of  the  forces 
of  nature  that  work  within  the  earth,  with 
those  which  are  seen  and  felt  upon  its  sur- 
face. Hutton  first  caught  the  meaning  of 
that  constant  circulation  of  water  which,  by 
means  of  evaporation,  winds,  clouds,  rain, 
snow,  brooks,  and  rivers,  is  kept  up  between 
land  and  sea.  He  saw  that  the  surface  of  the 
dry  land  is  everywhere  being  wasted  and 
worn  away.  The  scarped  cliff,  the  rugged 
glen,  the  lowland  valley,  are  each  undergoing 
this  process  of  destruction;  wherever  land 
rises  above  ocean,  there,  from  mountain-top 
to  sea-shore,  degradation  is  continually  going 
on.  Here  and  there,  indeed,  the  debris  of 
:he  hills  may  be  spread  out  upon  the  plains  ; 
here  and  there,  too,  dark  angular  peaks  and 
crags  rise  as  they  rose  centuries  ago,  and 
seem  to  defy  the  elements.  But  these  are 
only  apparent  and  not  real  exceptions  to  the 
universal  law,  that  so  long  as  a  surface  of 
land  is  exposed  to  the  atmosphere  it  must 
suffer  disintegration  and  removal. 

But  Hutton  saw,  further,  that  this  waste 
s  not  equally  distributed  over  the  whole  face 
of  the  dry  land.  He  perceived  that  while, 
owing  to  the  greater  or  less  resistance  offered 
by  different  kinds  of  rocks,  the  decay  must 
vary  indefinitely  in  rate.its  amount  must  neces- 
sarily be  greatest  where  the  surplus  water 
flows  bff  toward  the  sea — that  is,  along  the 
channels  of  the  streams.  Watercourses,  he 
argued,  are  precisely  in  the  lines  which  wa- 
ter would  naturally  follow  in  running  down 
the  slope  of  the  land  from  its  water-shed  to 
the  sea,  and  which,  when  once  selected  by 
the  surplus  drainage,  would  necessarily  be 
continually  widened  and  deepened  by  the 
excavating  power  of  the  rivers.  He  regarded 
the  streams  and  rivers  of  a  country  as  follow- 
ing the  lines  which  they  had  chiseled  for 
themselves  out  of  the  solid  land,  and  thus  he 
arrived  at  the  deduction  that  valleys  have 
been,  inch  by  inch  and  foot  by  foot,  dug  out 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  Af  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


of  the  solid  framework  of  the  lancf  by  the 
same  natural  agents — rain,  frost,  springs, 
rivers — by  which  they  are  still  made  wider 
and  deeper.  "The  mountains,"  he  said, 
"have  been  formed  by  the  hollowing  out  of 
the  valleys,  and  the  valleys  have  been  hol- 
lowed out  by  the  attrition  of  hard  materials 
coming  from  the  mountains."  This  is  a 
doctrine  which  is  only  now  beginning  to  be 
adequately  realized.  Yet  to  Hutton  it  was  so 
obvious  as  to  convince  him,  to  use  his  own 
memorable  words,  "that  the  great  system 
upon  the  surface  of  this  earth  is  that  of  val- 
leys and  rivers,  and  that  however  this  system 
shall  be  interrupted  and  occasionally  de- 
stroyed, it  would  necessarily  be  again  formed 
in  time  while  the  earth  continued  above  the 
level  of  the  sea." 

Although  these  views  were  again  and  again 
proclaimed  by  Hutton  in  the  pages  of  his 
treatise,  and  though  Playfair,  catching  up  th; 
spirit  of  his  master,  preached  them  with  a 
force  and  eloquence  which  might  almost  have 
insured  the  triumph  of  any  cause,  they  met 
with  but  scant  acceptance.  The  men  were 
before  their  time  ;  and  thus  while  the  world 
gradually  acknowledged  the  teaching  of  the 
Scottish  School  as  to  the  past  history  of  the 
rocks,  it  lent  an  incredulous  ear  to  that  teach- 
ing when  dealing  with  the  present  surface  of 
the  earth.  Even  some  of  the  Huttonians 
themselves  refused  to  follow  their  master 
when  he  sought  to  explain  the  existing 
inequalities  of  the  land  by  the  working  of 
the  same  quiet,  unobtrusive  forcej  which  are 
still  plying  their  daily  tasks  around  us.  But 
no  incredulity  or  neglect  can  destroy  the 
innate  vitality  of  truth.  And  so  now,  after 
the  lapse  of  fully  two  generations,  the  views 
of  Hutton  have  in  recent  years  been  revived, 
especially  in  Britain,  and  have  become  the 
war  cry  of  a  yearly  increasing  crowd  of 
earnest  hard-working  geologists. 

While  they  insisted  upon  the  manifest 
proofs  of  constant  and  universal  decay  over 
the  surface  of  the  globe,  the  Scottish  geolo- 
gists no  less  strongly  contended  that  this 
decay  was  a  necessary  part  of  the  present 
economy  of  nature,  that  it  had  been  in  pro- 
gress from  the  earliest  periods  in  the  history 
of  the  earth,  and  that  it  was  essential  for  the 
presence  of  organized  beings  upon  the  planet. 
They  pointed  to  the  vegetable  soil,  derived 
from  the  decomposition  of  the  rocks  which 
it  covers,  and  necessary  for  the  support  of 
vegetable  life.  They  appealed  to  the  vast 
quantity  of  sedimentary  rocks  forming  the  visi- 
ble part  of  the  crust  of  the  earth,  and  be  .ring 
witness  in  every  bed  and  layer  to  the  degra- 
dation and  removal  of  former  continents. 
They  showed  that  the  accumulated  debris  of 
the  land,  carried  to  the  sea,  was  there  spread 
out  on  the  sea-floor  to  form  new  strata, 
which,  hardened  in  due  time  into  solid  rock, 
would  hereafter  be  upheaved  to  form  the 
framework  of  new  lands. 

Such   was  the    geology  of    the    Scottish 


School.  It  was  based  not  on  mere  specula- 
tion, but  on  broad  fundamental  facts  drawn 
from  mountain  and  valley,  hill  and  plain, 
and  tested  as  far  as  was  then  possible  by  the 
scrutiny  of  actual  experiment.  It  strove,  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  science,  to- 
evolve  a  system  out  of  the  manifold  compli- 
cations of  nature,  to  harmonize  wtiat  had 
seemed  but  the  wild  random  working  of  sub- 
terranean forces  with  the  quiet  operations  in 
progress  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth,  to- 
understand  what  is  the  present  system  of  the 
world,  and  through  that  to  peer  into  the  his- 
tory of  earlier  conditions  of  the  planet.  It 
taught  that  the  earthquake  and  volcano  were 
parts  of  the  orderly  arrangement  by  which 
new  continents  were  from  time  to  time  raised 
up  to  supply  the  place  of  others  that  had 
been  worn  away  ;  that  the  surface  of  the 
land  required  to  decay  to  furnish  life  to- 
plants  and  animals  ;  that  in  the  removal  of 
the  ctebris  thus  produced  mountains  and  val- 
leys were  carved  out ;  and  that  in  the  depths 
of  the  ocean  there  were  at  the  same  time  laid 
down  the  materials  for  the  formation  of 
other  lands,  which  in  after  ages  would  be  up- 
heaved by  underground  forces,  to  be  anew 
worn  away  as  before.  The  Scottish  School, 
proclaimed  that  in  the  inorganic  world  there 
s  ceaseless  change,  that  this  change  is  the 
central  idea  of  the  system,  and  that  in  its- 
constant  progress  lie  the  conditions  necessary 
For  the  continuance  of  our  earth  as  a  habita- 
ble globe. 

That  Hutton  and  his  followers  failed  to  real- 
ze  that  the  planet  has  had  a  vastly  prolonged 
evolution  which  the  visible  geological  record 
chronicles  only  imperfectly,  that  they  were 
"gnprant  of  the  geological  importance  of 
Fossils,  that  they  saw  only  partially  the  truths- 
which  they  labored  so  zealously  to  establish, 
and  that  they  fell  into  errors,  attaching  to- 
secondary  and  even  erroneous  parts  of  their 
system  an  importance  which  we  now  see  to- 
lave  been  misplaced,  is  only  what  may  be 
said  of  any  body  of  men  who,  at  any  time, 
lave  led  the  way  in  a  new  development  of 
luman  inquiry.  But,  after  all  allowance  is 
m  de  for  such  shortcomings,  we  see  that 
;heir  mistakes  were,  for  the  most  part,  main- 
s' in  matters  of  detail,  and  lhat  the  funda- 
mental principles  for  which  they  fought  have 
become  the  very  life  and  soul  of  modern  ge- 
ology. 

1  have  spoken  of  this  Scottish  School  as 
marking  a  period  of  activity  which  rose  into- 
brightness  and  then  waned.  It  is  only  too- 
true,  that  so  far  as  the  originality  and  influ- 
ence of  its  cultivators  go,  Geology  has  never 
since  held  in  Scotland  the  place  which  it  held 
here  at  the  beginning  of  this  century.  Its  decay 
is  perhaps  to  be  ascribed  chiefly,  if  not  en- 
tirely, to  the  introduction  of  the  doctrines  of 
Werner  from  Germany.  The  Huttonians 
had  dealt  rather  with  general  principles  thaa 
with  minute  details ;  they  were  weak  in  ac- 
curate mineralogical  knowledge — not  that 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


they  were  ignorant  of  or  in  any  degree  de- 
spised such  knowledge  ;  but  it  was  not  nec- 
essary for  their  object.     When,  however,  the 
system  of  Werner  came  to  be  taught  within 
these  walls  by  his  devoted  pupil  Jameson,  its 
precision   and   simplicity,   and  its  supposed 
capability    of    ready    application     in    every 
country,  joined  to  the  skill  and  zeal  of  its 
teacher,  gave  it  an  impulse  which  lasted  for 
years.     I  shall  have  occasion  in  a  subsequen 
lecture  to  speak  of  this  system.     It  attemptec 
to  explain  the  geological  history  of  the  globe 
from  the  rocks  of  a  limited  district  in  Saxony. 
It  required   mineralogical   determination  o( 
rocks  and  pointed  out  a  certain  order  of  suc- 
cession among  them.     In  so  far  it  did  good 
service,  but  its  theoretical  teaching  as    re- 
ga.  ds  the  history  of  the  earth  cannot  now  be 
regarded   without    a  smile.     It   maintained 
that  the  globe  was  covered  with  certain  uni- 
versal formations  which  had  been  precipitated 
successively  from   solution  into  a  primeval 
ocean.     Of  upheaval  and  subsidence,  earth- 
quakes and  volcanoes,  and  all  the  mechanism 
of  internal  heat,  it  could  make  nothing,  and 
ignored  as  much  as  it  dared.     Werner,  the 
founder  of  this  system,  had  the  faculty  of  at- 
taching his  students  to  him,  and  of  infusing  in- 
to them  no  small  share  of  his  own  zeal  and  faith 
in  his  doctrines.     His  pupil  Jameson  had  a 
similar  aptitude.     Skilled  in  the  mineralogy 
of  his  time,  and  full  of  desire  to  apply  the 
teachings  of  Freyberg  to  the  explication  of 
Scottish  geology,  or  geognosy,  as  the  Wer- 
nerians  preferred  to  call  it,  Jameson  gathered 
round  him  a  band  of  active  observers,   who 
gleaned  facts  from  all  parts  of  Scotland,  and 
to  whom  the  first  accurate  descriptions  of  the 
mineralogy  of  the  country  are  due.     It  is  but 
fitting  that  a  tribute  of  gratitude  should  on 
the  present  occasion  be  offered  to  the  mem- 
ory of  Jameson   for  the   life-long  devotion 
with  which  he  taught  Natural  History,  and 
especially    Mineralogy,    in   this    University. 
His  influence  is  to  be  judged  not  by  what  he 
wrote,  but  by  the  effect  of  his  example,  and 
by   the  number  of  ardent   naturalists   who 
sprang   from   his   teaching.     He   founded  a 
scientific  society  here,  and  called  it  Werner- 
ian, after  his  chief — a  society  which,  under 
his  guidance,  did  excel  lent  service  to  the  cause 
of  science  in  Scotland.     And  yet  in  the  course 
of  my  scientific  reading  I  have  never  met  a 
sadder  contrast  than  to  turn  from  the  earlier 
volumes  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  So- 
ciety of  Edinburgh,  containing  the  classic  es- 
says of  Hutton,   Hall,  and  Playfair — essays 
which  made  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  geol- 
ogy— to  the  pages  of  the  Wcmerian  Memoirs, 
and  find  grave  discussions  about  the  univer- 
sal formations,  the  aqueous  origin  of  basalt, 
and  the  chemical  disposition  of  such  rocks  as 


slate  and  conglomerate. 

Between  the  followers  of  Hutton  and  Wer- 


nists,"  as  if  they  recognized  only  the  power  ot 
internal  fire,  while  the  others  were  in  turn 
nicknamed  "  Neptunists, "  in  token  of  their 
adherence  to  water.  The  warfare  lasted  in  a 
desultory  way  for  many  years,  and  though 
the  Wernerian  school,  having  essentially  no 
vitality,  eventually  died  out,  and  its  leader 
Jameson  publicly  and  frankly  recanted  its 
errors,  the  early  Huttonian  magnates  had 
meanwhile  one  by  one  departed  and  left  no 
successors.  The  Huttonian  school  triumphed 
indeed,  but  its  triumph  was  seen  rather  in 
other  countries  than  in  Scotland,  and  was  due 
chiefly  to  the  impetus  given  to  the  reception 
of  its  doctrines  by  the  Principles  of  Geo  ogy 


of  Lyell.  The  Wernerian  faith  prea'ched  here 
by  Jameson  attracted  in  great  measure  the 
younger  men,  and  when  its  influence  waned 
there  were  no  great  names  on  the  other  side 
to  rally  the  thinned  and  weakened  ranks  of 
Huttonianism.  Hence  came  a  period  of  com-* 
parative  quiescence,  which  has  lasted  almost 
down  to  our  own  day.  From  time  to  time, 
indeed,  a  geologist  has  arisen  among  us  to 
show  that  the  science  was  not  dead,  and  that 
the  doctrines  of  Hutton  had  borne  good  fruit. 
But  geology  has  never  since  held  such  a 
prominent  place  in  Scotland,  nor  have  the 
writings  of  our  geologists  taken  the  same 
position  in  the  literature  of  the  science.  The 
great  name  of  Lyell,  and  others  of  lesser 
note,  have  earned  elsewhere  their  title  to 
fame. 

But  there  is  one  name  which  must  be  in  our 
hearts  and  on  our  lips  to-day,  that  of  Roder- 
ick Impey  Murchison.  To  his  munificence 
and  the  liberality  of  the  Crown  we  owe  the 
foundation  of  this  Chair  of  Geology,  and  to 
his  warm  friendship  I  am  indebted  for  the 
position  in  which  I  stand  before  you.  Of  his 
achievements  in  science,  and  of  the  influence 
of  his  work  all  over  the  world,  it  is  not  nec- 
essary now  to  speak ;  but  on  Scottish  Geol- 
ogy no  man  has  left  his  name  more  deeply 
engraven.  It  was  he  who,  with  Professor 
Sedgwick,  first  made  known  the  order  of 
succession  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  of  the 
north  of  Scotland  ;  it  was  he  who  sketched 
'or  us  the  relations  of  the  great  Silurian 
nasses  of  the  Southern  uplands  ;  and  it  was 

who,  by  a  series  of  admirable  researches, 
>rought  order  out  of  the  chaos  of  the  so- 
called  primary  rocks  of  the  Highlands,  and 
jlaced  these  rocks  on  a  parallel  with  the  Silu- 
ian  strata  of  other  countries.  These  la- 
jors  will  come  again  before  us  in  detail,  and 
will  then  better  understand  their  value, 
and  the  debt  we  owe  to  the  man  who  accom- 
)lished  them. 

Sir  Roderick  Murchison  looked  forward 
with  interest  to  the  occasion  which  has  called 
us  together  to-day.  Only  a  few  weeks  ago  I 
alked  with  him  regarding  it,  and  his  eye 
jrightened  as  I  told  him  of  the  subject  on 


ner  there  necessarily  arose  a  keen  warfare,  j  which  I  proposed  to  speak  to  you.  I  had 
The  one  battalion  of  combatants  was  styled  I  hoped  that  he  would  have  lived  to  see  this 
by  its  opponents  "Vulcanists"  or  "  Pluto-  I  day,  and  to  hear  at  least  of  the  beginning  of 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


the  work  which  he  has  inaugurated  for  us  in 
this  University  ;  but  this  was  not  to  be.  He 
has  been  taken  from  us  ripe  in  years,  in 
work,  and  in  honors,  and  he  leaves  us  the 
trxample  of  his  unwearied  industry,  his  ad- 
mirable powers  of  observat  on,  and  his  rare 
goodness  of  heart. 

In  the  course  of  study  now  before  us,  we 
are  to  be  engaged  in  examining  together  the 
structure  and  his'ory  of  the  earth.  We  shall 
trace  the  woiking  of  tiio  various  natural 
agents  which  are  now  canying  on  geological 
change,  and  by  which  the  past  changes  of 
the  globe  may  be  explained.  In  so  doing  we 
•shall  be  brought  continually  face  to  face  with 
the  history  of  life  as  recorded  in  the  rocks — 
for  it  is  by  that  history  mainly  that  the 
sequences  of  geological  time  can  be  estab- 
lished. We  shall  thus  have  to  trespass  a 
Httle  on  what  is  the  proper  domain  of  the 
Professors  of  Botany  and  of  Natural  History. 
But  you  will  find  that  no  hard  line  can  be 
drawn  between  the  sciences.  Each  must 
needs  overlap  upon  the  other  ;  and  indeed  it  is 
in  this  mutual  interlacing  that  one  great  ele- 
ment of  the  strength  and  interest  of  science 
lies.  From  Profej-sors  Balfour  and  \Vy- 
ville  Thomson  you  will  learn  the  struc- 
ture of  the  fossils  with  which  we  shall  have 
to  deal  as  our  geological  alphabet,  and  their 
relation  to  living  plants  and  animals.  By 
Professor  Crum  Brown  you  are  taught  the 
full  meaning  and  application  of  the  chemical 
laws  under  which  the  minerals  and  rocks, 
which  we  in  this  class  must  study,  have  been 
formed,  and  of  the  processes  concerned  in 
those  subsequent  changes,  both  of  rocks  and 
minerals,  .which  are  of  such  paramount  im- 
portance in  Geology. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  permit  me  to  give 
expression  to  the  feelings  which  must  strongly 
possess  the  mind  of  one  who  is  called  upon 
to  fill  the  first  Chair  dedicated  in  Scotland  to 
the  cultivation  of  Geology.  When  I  look 
back  to  the  times  of  that  illustrious  group  of 
men — Hutton,  Hall,  Playfair — who  made 
Edinburgh  the  special  home  of  Geology  ;  of 
Boue  and  MacCulloch,  who  gave  to  Scottish 
rocks  a  European  celebrity  ;  of  Jameson 
and  Edward  Forbes,  who  did  so  much  to 
stimulate  the  study  of  Geology  and  Miner- 
alogy in  this  University  ;  and  to  the  memory 
of  Hugh  Miller  and  Charles  Maclaren,  who 
fostered  the  love  of  these  sciences  throughout 
the  community,  and  for  whose  kindly  frienc- 
ship  and  guidance  given  to  me  in  my  boy 
hood  I  would  fain  express  my  hearty 
gratitude— when  I  cast  my  thoughts  back 
upon  these  associations,  it  would  be  affecta- 
tion to  conceal  the  anxiety  with  which  the 
prospect  fills  me.  The  memory  of  these 
great  names  arises  continually  before  me, 
bearing  with  it  a  con  ciousness  of  the  re- 
sponsibility under  which  I  lie  to  labor  ear- 
nestly not  to  be  unworthy  of  the  traditions  of 
the  past.  And,  gentlemen,  I  feel  deeply  my 
responsibility  to  you  who  are  to  enter  with 


me  upon  a  yet  untrodden  path  of  the  .Aca- 
demic curriculum.  It  is  only  experience  that 
will  show  us  how  we  shall  best  travel  over 
the  wide  field  before  us.  In  the  meaniime  I 
must  bespeak  your  kindly  forbearance.  While 
I  shall  cheerfully  teach  you  all  I  know,  and 
confess  what  I  do  not  know,  I  would  fain 
have  you  in  the  end  to  regard  me  as  much  in 
the  light  of  a  fellow  student,  searching  with 
you  after  truth,  as  of  a  teacher  putting 
before  you  what  is  already  known.  We  have 
now  an  opportunity  of  combined  and  sedu- 
lous work  which  has  not  hitherto  been  ob- 
tainable in  Scotland.  We  may  not  rival  a 
Hutton  or  a  Hall  ;  but  we  may  at  least  try  to 
raise  again  the  standard  of  geological  in- 
quiry here.  On  every  s-ide  of  us  are  incen- 
tives to  study.  Crag  a'hd  hill  rise  around  us, 
each  eloquent  of  ancient  revolutions,  and 
each  a  silent  witness  of  the  revolution  in 
progress  now.  At  our  very  gates  tower  on 
one  side  the 'picture  que  memorials  of  long 
silent  volcanoes,  with  their  crumbling  lavas 
and  ashes.  On  the  other  lies  the  buried 
vegetation  of  an  ancient  land,  with  the  corals 
and  shells  of  a  former  ocean.  Everywhere 
the  scarred  and  wasted  rocks  tell  of  the 
degradation  of  the  solid  land,  and  show  us 
how  the  waste  goes  on.  Let  us  then  carry 
into  our  task  some  share  of  the  enthusiasm 
which  these  daily  exemplars  called  forth  in 
bygone  times.  Let  us  turn  from  the  lessons 
of  the  lecture-room  to  the  lessons  of  the 
crags  and  ravines,  appealing  constantly  to 
nature  for  the  explanation  and  verification  of 
what  is  taught.  And  thus,  whatsoever  may 
be  your  career  in  future,  you  will  in  the 
meantime  cultivate  habits  of  observation  and 
communion  with  the  free  fresh  world  around 
you — nabits  which  will  give  a  z  :st  to  every 
journey,  which  will  enable  you  to  add  to  the 
sum  of  human  knowledge,  and  which  will 
assuredly  make  you  wiser  and  better  men. 


VI. 
GEOGRAPHICAL  EVOLUTION." 

>  In  the  quaint  preface  to  his  Navigations 
and  Voyages  of  the  English  Nation,  Hakluyt 
calls  geography  and  chronology  "the  sunne 
and  moone,  the  right  eye  and  the  left  of  all 
history."  The  position  thus  claimed  for  ge- 
ography three  hundred  years  ago  by  the  great 
English  chronicler  was  not  accorded  by  his 
successors,  and  has  hardly  been  admitted  even 
now.  The  functions  of  the  geographer  and 
the  traveler,  popularly  assumed  to  be  identi- 
cal, have  been  supposed  to  consist  in  de- 
scriptions of  foreign  countries,  their  climates, 
productions,  and  inhabitants,  bristling  on  the 
one  hand  with  dry  statistics,  and  relieved  on 
the  other  by  as  copious  an  introduction  as 
may  be  of  stirring  adventure  and  personal 


*  A  Lecture  delivered  at  the  Evening  Meeting  of 
the  Royal  Geographical  Society,  34th  March,  1879. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


anecdote.     There  has  indeed  been  much  to 
justify  this  popular  assumption.     It  was  not 
until  the  keynote  of  its  future  progress   was 
struck  by    Karl   Ritter,    within   the   present 
century,  that  geography  advanced  beyond  the 
domain  of   travelers'  tales  and  desultory  ob- 
servation into   that   of  orderly,    methodical, 
scientific  progress.     This  branch  of  inquiry, 
however,  is  now  no  longer  the  pursuit  of  mere 
numerical  statistics,  nor  the  chronicle  of  mar- 
velous and  often  questionable   adventures  by 
rkod  and  fell.     It  seeks  to  present  a  lumin- 
ous picture  of  the  earth's  surface,  its  various 
forms  of  configuration,  its  continents,  islands,  j 
and  oceans,  us  mountains,  valleys,  and  plains, 
its  rivers  and  lakes,  its  climates,  plants  and  | 
animals.     It   thus   endeavors   to   produce   a  I 
picture  which  shall  not  be  one  of  mere  topo- 
graphical detail.     It  ever  looks  for  a  connec- 
tion between  scattered  facts,   tries  to  ascer-  j 
tain  the  relations  which  subsist  between  the  | 
different  parts  of  the  globe,  their  reactions  on  j 
each  other  and  the  function  of  each  in  the 
general  economy  of  the  whole.     Modern  ge-  | 
ography  studies  the  distribution  of  vegetable 
and  animal  life  over  the  earth's  surface,  with 
the  ac'ion  and  reaction  between  it  and  the 
surrounding  organic  world.     It  traces   how 
man,    alike    unconsciously   and   knowingly, 
has  changed  the  face  of  nature,  and  how,  on 
the  other  hand,   the  conditions   of  his  geo- 
graphical environment  have   molded  his  own 
progress. 

With  these  broad  aims,  geography  comes 
frankly  for  assistance  to  many  different 
branches  of  science.  It  does  not,  however, 
claim  in  any  measure  to  occupy  their  domain. 
It  brings  to  the  consideration  of  their  prob- 
lems a  central  human  interest  in  which  these 
sciences  are  sometimes  apt  to  be  deficient ; 
for  it  demands  first  of  all  to  know  how  the 
problems  to  be  solved  bear  upon  the  position 
and  history  of  man  and  of  this  marvelously- 
ordered  world  wherein  he  finds  himself  un- 
disputed lord.  Geography  freely  borrows 
from  meteorology,  physics,  chemistry,  geolo- 
gy, zoology,  and  botany  ;  but  the  debt  is  not 
all  on  one  side.  Save  for  the  impetus  derived 
from  geographical  research,  many  of  these 
sciences  would  not  be  in  their  present  ad- 
vanced condition.  They  gain  in  vast  aug- 
mentation of  facts,  and  may  cheerfully  lend 
their  aid  in  correlating  these  for  geographical 
requirements. 

In  no  respect  does  modern  geography  stand 
out  more  prominently  than  in  the  increased 
precision  and  fullness  of  its  work.  It  has 
fitted  out  exploratory  expeditions,  and  in  so 
doing  has  been  careful  to  see  them  provided 
with  the  instruments  and  apparatus  necessary 
to  enable  them  to  contribute  accurate  and 
definite  results.  It  has  guided  and  fostered 
research,  and  has  been  eager  to  show  a  gen- 
erous appreciation  of  the  labors  of  those  by 
whom  our  knowledge  of  the  earth  has  been 
extended.  Human  courage  and  endurance 
are  not  less  enthusiastically  applauded  than 


they  once  were  ;  but  they  must  be  united  to 
no  common  powers  of  observation  before  they 
will  now  raise  a  traveler  to  the  highest  rank. 
When  we  read  a  volume  of  recent  travel, 
while  warmly  appreciating  the  spirit  of  ad- 
venture, fertility  of  resource,  presence  of 
mind,  and  other  moral  qualities  of  its  author, 
we  instinctively  ask  ourselves,  as  we  close  its 
pages,  what  is  the  sum  of  its  additions  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  earth?  From  the  geo 
g-aphical  point  of  view — and  it  is  to  this 
point  alone  that  these  remarks  apply — we 
must  rank  an  explorer  according  to  his  suc- 
cess in  widening  our  knowledge  and  enlarg- 
ing our  views  regarding  the  aspects  of 
nature. 

The  demands  of  modern  geography  are 
thus  becoming  every  year  more  exacting.  It 
requires  more  training  in  its  explorers  abroad, 
more  knowledge  on  the  part  of  its  readers  at 
home.  The  days  are  drawing  to  a  close  when 
one  can  gain  undying  geographical  renown 
by  struggling  against  man  and  beast,  fever 
and  hunger  and  drought,  across  some  savage 
and  previously  unknown  region,  even  though 
little  can  be  shown  as  the  outcome  of  the 
journey.  All  honor  to  the  pioneers  by  whom 
this  first  exploratory  work  has  been  so  nobly 
done  !  They  will  be  succeeded  by  a  race  that 
will  find  its  laurels  more  difficult  to  win — a 
race  from  which  more  will  be  expected,  and 
which  will  need  to  make  up  in  the  variety, 
amount,  and  value  of  its  detail,  what  it  lacks 
in  the  freshness  of  first  glimpses  into  new 
lands. 

With  no  other  science  has  geography  be- 
come more  intimately  connected  than  with 
geology,  and  the  connection  is  assuredly 
destined  to  become  yet  deeper  and  closer. 
These  two  branches  of  hum.n  knowledge 
are,  to  use  Hakluyt's  phrase,  "  the  sunne 
and  moone,  the  right  eye  and  the  left,"  of 
all  fruitful  inquiry  into  the  character  and  his- 
tory of  the  earth's  surface.  As  it  is  impos- 
sible to  understand  the  genius  and  tempera- 
ment of  a  people,  its  laws  and  institutions, 
its  manners  and  customs,  its  buildings  and 
its  industries,  unless  we  trace  back  the  his- 
tory of  that  people,  and  mark  the  rise  and 
effect  of  each  varied  influence  by  which  its 
progress  has  been  molded  in  past  genera- 
tions ;  so  it  is  clear  that  our  knowledge  of 
the  aspect  of  a  continent,  its  mountains  and 
valleys,  rivers  and  plains,  and  all  its  surface- 
features,  cannot  be  other  than  singularly 
feeble  and  imperfect,  unless  we  realize  what 
has  been  the  origin  of  these  features.  The 
land  has  had  a  history,  not  less  than  the 
human  races  that  inhabit  it. 

One  can  hardly  consider  attentively  the 
future  progress  of  geography  without  being 
convinced  that  in  the  wide  development  yet 
in  store  for  this  branch  of  human  inquiry, 
one  of  its  main  lines  of  advance  must  be  in 
the  direction  of  what  may  be  termed  geo- 
graphical evolution.  The  geographer  will 
no  longer  be  content  to  take  continents  and 


34 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


islands,  mountain  chains  and  river  valleys 
table-lands  and  plains,  as  initial  or  aborigina 
outlines  of  the  earth's  surface.  He  will  in 
sist  on  knowing  what  the  geologist  can  tel 
him  regarding  the  growth  of  these  outlines 
He  will  try  to  trace  out  the  gradual  evolution 
of  a  continent,  and  may  even  construct  maps 
to  show  its  successive  stages  of  development 
At  the  same  time  he  will  seek  for  information 
regarding  the  history  of  the  plants  and  ani 
mals  of  the  region,  and  may  find  much  to 
reward  his  inquiry  as  to  the  early  migrations 
of  the  fauna  and  flora,  including  those  even 
of  man  himself.  Thus  his  pictures  of  the 
living  world  of  to-day,  as  they  become  more 
detailed  and  accurate  will  include  more  and 
more  distinctly  a  back-ground  of  bygone 
geographical  conditions,  out  of  which,  by 
continuous  sequence,  the  present  conditions 
will  be  shown  to  have  arisen. 

I  propose  this  evening  to  sketch  in  mere 
outline  the  aspects  of  one  side  of  this  evolu- 
tional geography.  I  wish  to  examine,  in  the 
first  place,  the  evidence  whereby  we  establish 
the  fundamental  fact  that  the  present  surface 
of  any  country  or  continent  is  not  that  which 
it  has  always  borne,  and  the  data  by  which 
we  may  trace  backward  the  origin  of  the 
land  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  to  consider, 
by  way  of  illustration,  some  of  the  more 
salient  features  in  the  gradual  growth  of  the 
framework  of  Europe. 

The  first  of  these  two  divisions  of  the  sub- 
ject deals  with  general  principles,  and  may 
be  conveniently  grouped  into  two  parts  :  ist, 
The  Materials  of  the  Land.  2d,  The  Build- 
ing of  the  Land. 

I.   GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  CONTINENTAL 
EVOLUTION. 

i. — The  Materials  of  the  Ljnd, 

Without  attempting  to  enter  into  detailed 
treatment  of  this  branch  of  the  subject,  we 
may,  for  the  immediate  purpose  in  view, 
content  ourselves  with  the  broad,  useful 
classification  of  the  materials  of  the  land  into 
two  great  series — Fragmental  and  Crys- 
talline. 

§  I.  Fragmental. — A  very  cursory  examina- 
tion of  rocks  in  almost  any  part  of  the  world 
suffices  to  show  that  by  far  the  larger  portion 
of  them  consists  of  compacted  fragmentary 
materials.  Shales,  sandstones,  and  con- 
glomerates, in  infinite  variety  of  texture  and 
color,  are  piled  above  each  other  to  form  the 
foundation  of  plains  and  the  structure  of 
mountains.  Each  of  these  rocks  is  composed 
of  distinct  particles,  worn  by  air,  rain,  frost, 
springs,  rivers,  glaciers,  or  the  sea,  from 
previously  existing  rocks.  They  are  thus 
derivative  formations,  and  their  source,  as  well 
as  their  mode  of  origin,  can  be  determined. 
Their  component  grains  are  for  the  most 
part  rounded,  and  bear  evidence  of  having 


been  rolled  about  in  water.  Thus  we 
easily  and  rapidly  reach  a  first  and  funda- 
mental conclusion — that  the  substance  of  the 
main  part  of  the  solid  land  has  been  originally 
laid  down  and  assorted  under  water. 

The  mere  extent  of  the  area  covered  by 
these  water-formed  rocks  would  of  itself  sug- 
gest that  they  must  have  been  deposited  in 
the  sea.  We  cannot  imagine  rivers  or  lake* 
of  magnitude  sufficient  to  have  spread  over 
the  sites  of  the  present  continents.  The 
waters  of  the  ocean,  however,  may  easily  be 
conceived  to  have  rolled  at  different  times 
over  all  that  is  now  dry  land.  The  fragmental 
rocks  contain,  indeed,  within  themselves 
proof  that  they  were  mainly  of  marine,  and 
not  of  lacustrine  or  fluviatile  origin.  They 
have  preserved  in  abundance  the  remains  of 
foraminifera,  corals,  crinoids,  mollusks,  an- 
nelides,  crustaceans,  fishes,  and  other  organ- 
s  of  undoubtedly  marine  habitat,  which 
must  have  lived  and  died  in  the  places  where 
their  traces  remain  still  visible. 

But  not  only  do  these  organisms  occur 
scattered  through  sedimentary  rocks  ;  they 
actually  themselves  form  thick  masses  of 
mineral  matter.  The  Carboniferous  or 
Mountain  Limestone  of  Central  England 
and  Ireland,  for  example,  reaches  a  thick- 
ness of  from  2,000  to  |,ooo  feet,  and  covers 
thousands  of  square  miles  of  surface.  Yet 
it  is  almost  entirely  composed  of  congre- 
gated stems  and  joints  and  plates  of  crinoids, 
with  foraminifera,  corals,  bryozoans,  brachio- 
pods,  lamellibranchs,  gasteropods,  fish-teeth, 
ind  other  unequivocally  marine  organisms. 
It  must  have  been  for  ages  the  bottom  of  a 
clear  sea,  over  which  generation  after  genera- 
tion lived  and  died,  until  their  accumulated 
remains  had  gathered  into  a  deep  and  com- 
pact s  :eet  of  rock.  From  the  internal  evi- 
dence of  the  stratified  formations  we  thus 
confidently  announce  a  second  conclusion — 
:hat  a  great  portion  of  the  solid  land  consists 
of  materials  which  have  been  laid  down  on 
he  floor  of  the  sea. 

From  these  familiar  and  obvious  deduc- 
ions  we  may  proceed  further  to  inquire  under 
what  conditions  these  marine  formations, 
spreading  so  widely  over  the  land,  were 
"ormed.  According  to  a  popular  belief, 
ihared  in  perhaps  by  not  a  few  geologists, 
and  and  sea  have  been  continually  changing 
>laces.  It  is  supposed  that  while,  on  the 
ne  hand,  there  is  no  part  of  a  continent  over 
which  sea-waves  may  not  have  rolled,  so.  on 
he  other  hand,  there  is  no  lonely  abyss  of 
he  ocean  where  a  wide  continent  may  not 
lave  bloomed.  That  this  notion  rests  upon 
i  mistaken  interpretation  of  the  facts  may  be 
hown  from  an  examination^-(i)  of  the  rocks 
)f  the  land,  and  (2)  of  the  bottom  of  the 
>resent  ocean. 

(i)  Among  the  thickest  masses  of  sedimen- 
ary  rock — those  of  the  ancient  palaeozoic  sys- 
ems  —  no  features  recur  more  continually 
han  alternations  of  different  sediments,  and 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


35 


surfaces  of  rock  covered  with  well-preserved 
ripple-marks,  trails  and  burrows  of  annelides, 
polygonal  at  d  irregular  desiccation  marks, 
like  the  cracks  at  the  bottom  of  a  sun-dried 
muddy  pool.  These  phenomena  unequivo- 
cally point  to  shallow  and  even  littoral  waters. 
They  occur  from  bottom  to  top  of  deposits 
which  reach  a  thickness  of  several  thousand 
feet.  They  can  be  interpreted  only  in  one 
way,  namely,  that  their  deposition  began  in 
shallow  water  ;  that  during  their  formation 
the  area  of  deposit  gradually  subsided  for 
thousands  of  feet;  yet  that  the  rate  of  accu- 
mulation of  sediment  kept  pace  on  the  whole 
with  this  depression  ;  and  hence,  that  the 
original  shallow-water  character  of  the  de- 
posits remained,  even  after  the  original  sea- 
bottom  had  been  buried  under  a  vast  mass  of 
sedimentary  matter.  Now,  if  this  explana- 
tion be  true,  even  for  the  enormously  thick 
and  comparatively  uniform  systems  of  older 
geological  periods,  the  relatively  thin  and 
much  more  varied  stratified  groups  of 
later  date  can  offer  no  difficulty.  In  short, 
the  more  attentively  the  stratified  rocks  of 
the  crust  of  the  earth  are  studied,  the  more 
striking  becomes  the  absence  of  any  deposits 
among  them  which  can  legitimately  be  con- 
sidered those  of  a  deep  sea.  They  have 
all  been  deposited  in  comparatively  shallow 
water. 

The  same  conclusion  may  be  arrived  at 
from  a  consideration  of  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  deposition  must  have  taken 
place.  It  is  evident  that  the  sedimentary 
rocks  of  all  ages  have  been  derived  from 
degradation  of  land.  The  gravel,  sand,  and 
mud,  of  which  they  consist,  existed  previously 
as  part  of  mountains,  hills,  or  plains.  These 
materials  carried  down  to  the  sea  would  ar- 
range themselves  there  as  they  do  still,  the 
coarser  portions  nearest  the  shore,  the  finer 
silt  and  mud  farthest  from  it.  From  the 
earliest  geological  times  the  great  area  of  de- 
posit has  been,  as  it  still  is,  the  marginal  belt 
of  sea-floor  skirting  the  land.  It  is  there 
that  nature  has  always  strewn  "the  dust  of 
continents  to  be."  The  decay  of  old  rocks 
has  been  unceasingly  in  progress  on  the  land, 
and  the  building  up  of  new  rocks  has  been 
unintermittently  going  on  underneath  the  a  J- 
joming  sea.  The  two  phenomena  are  the 
complementary  sides  of  one  process,  which 
belongs  to  the  terrestrial  and  shallow  oceanic 
parts  of  the  earth's  surface  and  not  to  the 
wide  and  deep  ocean  basins. 

(2)  Recent  explorations  of  the  bottom  of 
the  deep  sea  all  over  the  world  have  brought 
additional  light  to  this  question.  No  part  of 
the  results  obtained  by  the  Challenger  Expe- 
dition has  a  profounder  interest  for  geologists 
and  geographers  than  the  proof  which  they 
furnish  that  the  floor  of  the  ocean  basins  has 
no  real  analogy  among  the  sedimentary  for- 
mations that  form  most  of  the  framework 
of  the  land.  We  now  know  by  actual 
dredging  and  inspection  that  the  ordinary 


sediment  washed  off  the  land  sinks  to  the 
sea-bottom  before  it  reaches  the  deeper 
abysses,  and  that,  as  a  rule,  only  the  finer 
particles  are  carried  more  than  a  few  scores 
of  miles  from  the  shore.  Instead  of  such 
sandy  and  pebbly  material  as  we  find  so 
largely  among  the  sedimentary  rocks  of  the 
land,  wide  tracts  of  the  sea-bottom  at  great 
depths  are  covered  with  various  kinds  of  or. 
ganic  ooze,  composed  sometimes  of  minute 
calcareous  foraminifera,  sometimes  of  silice- 
ous radiolaria  or  diatoms.  Over  other  areas 
vast  sheets  of  clay  extend,  derived  apparently 
from  the  decomposition  of  volcanic  detritus, 
of  which  large  quantities  are  floated  away 
from  volcanic  islands,  and  much  of  which 
may  be  produced  by  submarine  volcanoes. 
On  the  tracts  farthest  removed  from  any  land 
the  sediment  seems  to  settle  scarcely  so 
rapidly  as  the  dust  that  gathers  over  the  floor 
of  a  deserted  hall.  Mr.  Murray,  of  the  Chal- 
lenger staff,  has  described  how  from  these  re- 
mote depths  large  numbers  of  sharks'  teeth 
and  ear-bones  of  whales  were  dredged  up. 
We  cannot  suppose  the  number  of  sharks 
and  whales  to  be  much  greater  in  these 
regions  than  in  others  where  their  relics  were 
found  much  less  plentifully.  The  explana- 
tion of  the  abundance  of  their  remains  was 
supplied  by  their  varied  condition  of  decay 
and  preservation.  Some  were  comparatively 
fresh,  others  had  greatly  decayed,  and  were 
"ncrusted  with  or  even  completely  buried  in  a 
deposit  of  earthy  manganese.  Yet  the  same 
cast  of  the  dredge  brought  up  these  different 
stages  cf  decay  from  the  same  surface  of  the 
sea-floor.  While  generation  after  generation 
of  sea-creatures  drops  its  bones  to  the  bottom, 
now  here,  now  there,  so  exceedingly  feeble  is 
the  rate  of  deposit  of  sediment  that  they  lie 
uncovered,  mayhap  for  centuries,  so  that  the 
remains  which  sink  to-day  may  lie  side  by 
side  with  the  moldered  and  incrusted  bones 
that  found  their  way  to  the  bottom  hundreds 
of  years  ago. 

Another  striking  indication  of  the  very 
slow  rate  at  which  sedimentation  takes  place 
in  these  abysses  has  also  been  brought  to  no- 
tice by  Mr.  Murray.  In  the  clay  from  the 
bottom  he  found  numerous  minute  spherical 
granules  of  native  iron,  which,  as  he  sug- 
gests, are  almost  certainly  of  meteoric  origin 
— fragments  of  those  falling  stars  which, 
coming  to  us  from  planetary  space,  burst 
into  fragments  when  they  rush  into  the 
denser  layers  of  our  atmosphere.  In  tracts 
where  the  growth  of  silt  upon  the  sea-floor  is 
excessively  tardy,  the  fine  particles,  scattered 
by  the  dissipation  of  these  meteorites,  may 
remain  in  appreciable  quantity.  In  this  case, 
again,  it  is  not  needful  to  suppose  that  me- 
teorites have  disappeared  over  these  ocean 
depths  more  numerously  than  over  other 
parts  of  the  earth's  surface.  The  iron  gran- 
ules have  no  doubt  been  as  plentifully  show- 
ered  down  elsewhere,  though  they  cannot  be 
so  readily  detected  in  accumulating  sediment. 


36 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


I  know  no  recent  observation    in    physical  ,  rents  of  the   subterranean   rocks.     We  can 

geography  more  calculated  to  impress  deeply  '  ° "-  *u~*   *u~   -~"-—  -'  --—*  -*  »«--  '  — 

the  imagination  than  the  testimony  of  this 
presumably  meteoric  iron  from  the  most  dis- 
tant abysses  of  the  ocean.  To  be  told  that  j 
mud  gathers  on  the  floor  of  these  abysses  at  ' 
an  extremely  slow  rate  conveys  but  a  vague 
notion  of  the  tardiness  of  the  process.  But 
to  learn  that  it  gathers  so  slowly  that  the  very 
star-dust  which  falls  from  outer  space  forms 
an  appreciable  part  of  it,  brings  home  to  us, 
as  hardly  anything  else  could  do,  the  idea  of 
undisturbed  and  excessively  slow  accumula- 


tion. 

From  all  this  evidence  we  may  legitimately 
conclude  that  the  present  land  of  the  globe, 
though  formed  in  gieat  measure  of  marine 
formations,  has  never  lain  under  the  deep 
sea;  but  that  its  site  must  always  have  been 
near  land.  Even  its  thick  marine  limestones 
are  the  deposits  of  comparatively  shallow 
water.  Whether  or  not  any  trace  of  aborig- 
inal land  may  now  be  discoverable,  the  char- 
acters of  the  most  unequivocally  marine  for- 


mations   bear    emph 


testimony  to  this 


proximity  of  a  terrestrial  surface.  The  pres- 
ent continental  ridges  have  probably  always 
existed  in  some  form,  and  as  a  corollary  we 
may  infer  that  the  present  deep  ocean  basins 
likewise  date  from  the  remotest  geological 
antiquity. 

§  2.  Crystalline. — While  the  greater  part 
of  the  framework  of  the  land  has  been  slowly 
built  up  of  sedimentary  mater.als,  it  is  abun- 
dantly varied  by  the  occurrence  of  crystalline 
masses,  many  of  which  have  been  injected  in 
a  molten  condition  into  rents  underground, 
or  have  been  poured  out  in  lava-streams  at 
the  surface. 

Without  entering  at  all  into  geological  de- 
tail, it  will  be  enough  for  the  present  pur- 
pose to  recognize  the  characters  and  origin 
of  two  great  types  of  crystalline  material 
which  have  been  called  respectively  the  Erup- 
tive and  Metatnorphic. 

(a)  Eruptive.  —  As  the  name  denotes, 
Eruptive  or  Igneous  rocks  have  been 


ejected 

earth. 


from    the    heated    interior    of  the 
In    a    modern    volcano    lava    as- 


cends the  central  funnel,  and  issuing  from 
the  lips  of  the  crater  or  from  lateral  fissures 
pours  down  the  slopes  of  the  cone  in 
sheets  of  melted  rock.  The  upper  surface  of 
the  lava  column  within  the  volcano  is  kept  in 
constant  ebullition  by  the  rise  of  steam 
through  its  mass.  Every  now  and  then  a 
vast  body  of  steam  rushes  out  with  a  terrific 
explosion,  scattering  the  melted  lava  into  im- 
palpable dust,  and  filling  the  air  with  ashes 
and  stones,  which  descend  in  showers  upon 
the  surrounding  country.  At  the  surface, 
therefore,  igneous  rocks  appear,  partly 
as  masses  of  congealed  lava,  and  par.ly  as 
more  or  less  consolidated  sheets  of  dust  and 
stones.  But  beneath  the  surface  there  must 
be  a  downward  prolongation  of  the  lava  col- 
umn, which  no  doubt  sends  out  veins  into 


suppose  that  the  general  aspect  of  the  lava 
which  consolidates  at  some  depth  will  difter 
from  that  which  solidifies  above  ground. 

As  a  result  of  the  revolutions  which  the 
crust  of  the  earth  has  undergone,  tie  roots 
of  many  ancient  volcanoes  have  been  laid 
bare.  We  have  been,  as  it  were:  admitted 
into  the  secrets  of  these  subterranean  labora- 
tories of  nature,  and  have  learned  much  re- 
garding the  mechanism  of  volcanic  action 
which  we  could  never  have  discovered  from 
any  modern  volcano.  Thus,  while  on  the 
one  hand  we  meet  with  beds  of  lava  and  con- 
solidated volcanic  ashes  which  were  undoubt- 
edly erupted  at  the  surface  of  the  ground  in 
ancient  periods,  and  were  subsequently 
buried  deep  beneath  sedimentary  accumula- 
tions now  removed,  on  the  other  hand  we 
find  masses  of  igneous  rock  which  certainly 
never  came  near  the  surface,  but  must  have 
been  arrested  in  their  ascent  from  below 
while  still  at  a  great  depth,  and  have  been 
laid  bare  to  the  light  after  the  removal  of  the 
pile  of  rock  under  which  they  originally  lay. 

By  noting  these  and  other  characters,  geol- 
ogists have  learnt  that,  besides  the  regions 
of  still  active  volcanoes,  there  are  few  large 
areas  of  the  earth's  surface  where  proofs  of 
former  volcanic  action  or  of  the  protrusion  of 
igneous  rocks  may  not  be  found.  The  crust 
of  the  earth,  crumpled  and  fissured,  has 
been,  so  to  speak,  perforated  and  cemented  to- 
gether by  molten  matter  driven  up  from  below. 

(b)  Metamorphic. — The  sedimentary  rocks 
of  the  land  have  undergone  many  changes 
since  their  formation,  some  of  which  are  still 
far  from  being  satisfactorily  accounted  for. 
One  of  these  changes  is  expressed  by  the 
term  Metamorphism,  and  the  rocks  which 
have  undergone  this  process  are  called  Meta- 
morphic. It  seems  to  have  taken  place  under 
widely  varied  conditions,  being  sometimes 
confined  to  small  local  tracts,  at  other  times 
extending  across  a  large  portion  of  a  conti- 
nent. It  consists  in  the  rearrangement  of 
the  component  materials  of  rocks,  and  nota- 
bly in  their  recrystallization  along  particular 
lines  or  laminae.  It  is  usually  associated 
with  evidence  of  great  pressure  ;  the  rocks  in 
which  it  occurs  having  been  corrugated  and 
crumpled,  not  only  in  vast  folds,  which  ex- 
tend across  whole  mountains,  but  even  in 
such  minute  puckerings  as  can  only  be  ob- 
served with  the  microscope.  It  shows  itself 
more  particularly  among  the  older  geological 
formations,  or  those  which  have  been  once 
deeply  buried  under  more  recent  masses  of 

;k,  and  have  been  exposed  as  the  result  ol 
the  removal  of  these  overlying  accumulations. 
The  original  characters  of  the  sandstones, 
shales,  grits,  conglomerates,  and  limestones, 
of  which,  no  doubt,  these  metamorphic 
masses  once  consisted,  have  been  more  or  less 
effaced,  and  have  given  place  to  that  pecu- 
liar crystalline  laminated  or  foliated  structure 
so  distinctively  a  result  of  metamorphism. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


An  attentive  examination  of  a  metamor 
phic  region  shows  that  here  and  there  th< 
alteration  and  recrystallization  have  pro- 
ceeded so  far  that  the  rocks  graduate  into 
granites  and  other  so-called  igneous  rocks 
A  series  of  specimens  may  be  collected  show- 
ing unaltered  or  at  least  quite  recognizable 
sedimentary  rocks  at  the  one  end,  and 
thoroughly  crystalline  igneous  rocks  at  the 
other.  Thus  the  remarkable  fact  is  brought 
home  to  the  mind  that  ordinary  sandstones, 
shales,  and  other  sedimentary  materials  may 
in  the  course  of  ages  be  converted  by  under- 
ground changes  into  crystalline  granite.  The 
framework  of  the  land,  besides  being  knit 
together  by  masses  of  igneous  rock  intruded 
from  below,  has  been  strengthened  by  the 
welding  and  crystallization  of  its  lowest  rocks. 
It  is  these  rocks  which  rise  along  the  central 
crests  of  mountain  chains,  where,  after  the 
lapse  of  ages,  they  have  been  uncovered  and 
laid  bare,  to  be  bleached  and  shattered  by 
frost  and  storm. 

ii. —  The  Architecture  of  the  Land, 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  consider  how  these 
materials,  sedimentary  and  crystalline,  have 
been  put  together,  so  as  to  constitute  the  solid 
land  of  the  globe. 

It  requires  but  a  cursory  examination  to 
observe  that  the  sedimentary  masses  have 
not  been  huddled  together  at  random;  that, 
on  the  contrary,  they  have  been  laid  down  in 
sheets,  one  over  the  other.  An  arrangement 
of  this  kind  at  once  betokens  a  chronological 
sequence.  The  rocks  cannot  all  have 
been  formed  simultaneously.  Those  at 
the  bottom  must  have  been  laid 
down  before  those  at  the  top.  A 
truism  of  this  kind  seems  hardly  to  require 
formal  statement.  Yet  it  lies  at  the  very 
foundation  of  any  attempt  to  trace  the  geo- 
logical history  of  a  country.  Did  the  rocks 
everywhere  lie  undisturbed  one  above  another 
as  they  were  originally  laid  down, their  clear  or- 
der of  succession  would  carry  with  it  its  own 
evident  interpretation.  But  such  have  been  the 
changes  that  have  arisen,  partly  from  the 
operation  of  forces  from  below,  partly  from 
that  of  forces  acting  on  the  surface,  that  the 
true  order  of  a  series  of  rocks  ;s  not  always 
so  easily  determined.  By  starting,  however, 
from  where  the  succession  is  normal  and  un- 
broken, the  geologist  can  advance  with  con- 
fidence into  regions  where  it  has  been  com- 
pletely interrupted  ;  where  the  rocks  have 
been  shattered,  crumpled,  and  even  inverted. 

The  clue  which  guides  us  through  these 
labyrinths  is  a  very  simple  one.  It  is  afforded 
by  the  remains  of  once  living  plants  and  ani- 
mals, which  have  been  preserved  in  the  rocky 
framework  of  the  land.  Each  well-marked 
series  of  sedimentary  accumulations  contains 
its  own  characteristic  plants,  corals,  crusta- 
ceans, shells,  fishes,  or  other  organic  remains. 
By  these  it  can  be  identified  and  traced  from 
country  to  country  across  a  whole  continent. 


When,  therefore,  the  true  order  of  superposi. 
tion  of  the  rocks  has  been  ascertained  by  ob- 
serving how  they  lie  upon  each  other,  the 
succession  of  their  fossils  is  at  the  same 
time  fixed.  In  this  w^y  the  sedimentary 
part  of  the  earth's  crust  has  been  classified 
into  different  formations,  each  characterized 
by  its  distinct  assemblage  of  organic  remains. 
In  the  most  recent  formations,  most  of  these 
remains  are  identical  with  still  living  species 
of  plants  and  animals;  but  as  we  descend  in 
the  series  and  come  into  progressively  older 
deposits  the  proportion  of  existing  species 
diminishes,  until  at  last  all  the  species  of  fos- 
sils are  found  to  be  extinct.  Still  lower  and 
older  rocks  reveal  types  and  assemblages 
of  organisms  which  depart  farther  and  farther 
from  the  existing  order. 

By  noting  the  fossil  contents  of  a  forma- 
tion, therefore,  even  in  a  district  where  the 
rocks  have  been  so  disturbed  that  their  se- 
quence is  otherwise  untraceable,  the  geologist 
can  confidently  assign  their  relative  position 
o  each  of  the  fractured  masses.  He  knows, 
or  instance,  using  for  our  present  purpose 
he  letters  of  the  alphabet  to  denote  the  se- 
quence of  the  formations,  that  a  mass  of  lime- 
stone containing  fossils  typical  of  the  forma- 
ion  B  must  be  younger  than  another  mass  of 
•ock  containing  the  fossils  of  A.  A  series  of 
itrata  full  of  the  fossils  of  H  resting  imme- 
diately on  others  charged  with  those  of  C, 
must  evidently  be  separated  from  these  by  a 
jreat  gap,  elsewhere  filled  in  by  the  interven- 
ng  formations  D,  E,  F,  G.  Nay,  should  the 
ocks  in  the  upper  part  of  a  mountain  be  re- 
)lete  with  the  fossils  proper  to  D,  while  those 
n  the  lower  slopes  showed  only  the  fossils  of 
2,  F  and  G,  it  could  be  demonstrated  that 
s  materials  o  the  mountain  had  actually 
>een  turned  upside  down,  for,  as  proved  by 
ts  organic,  remains,  the  oldest,  and  therefore 
owest,  formation  had  come  to  lie  at  the  top, 
and  the  youngest,  and  therefore  highest,  at 
he  bottom. 

Of  absolute  chronology  in  such  questions 
science  can  as  yet  give  no  measure  How 
nany  millions  of  years  each  formation  may 
lave  required  for  its  prodaction,  and  how  far 
jack  in  time  may  be  the  era  of  any  given 
jroup  of  fossils,  are  problems  to  which  no 
answer,  other  than  a  mere  guess,  can  be  re- 
urned.  But  this  is  a  matter  of  far  less 
moment  than  the  relative  chronology,  which 
:an  usually  be  accurately  fixed  for  each  coun- 
ry,  and  on  which  all  attempts  to  trace  back 
he  history  of  the  land  must  be  based. 

While,  then,  it  is  true  that  most  of  the  ma- 

erials  of  the  solid  land  have  been  laid  down 

t  successive  periods  under  the  sea,  and  that 

he  relative  dates  of  their  deposition  can  be 

etermined,  it  is  no  less  certain  that  the  for- 

lation  of  these  materials  has  not  proceeded 

ninterruptedly,   and   that    they    have    not 

nally   been   raised   into   Land   by  a  single 

movement.     The  mere  fact  that  thej'  are  of 

marine  origin  shows,  of  course,  that  the  lant' 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


owes  its  origin  to  some  kind  of  terrestrial 
cnsturbance.  But  when  the  sedimentary  for- 
mations are  examined  in  detail,  they  present 
a  most  wonderful  chronicle  of  long-continued, 
oft-repeated,  and  exceedingly  complex  move- 
ments of  the  crust  of  the  globe.  They  show 
that  the  history  of  every  country  has  been 
long  and  eventful ;  that,  in  short,  hardly  any 
portion  of  the  land  has  reached  its  present 
condition,  save  after  a  protracted  series  of 
geological  revolutions. 

One  of  the  most  obvious  and  not  the  least 
striking  features  in  the  architecture  of  the 
land  is  the  frequency  with  which  the  rocks, 
though  originally  horizontal,  or  approximate- 
ly so,  have  been  tilted  up  at  various  angles, 
or  even  placed  on  end.  At  first  it  might  be 
supposed  that  these  disturbed  positions  have 
been  assumed  at  random,  according  to  the 
capricious  operatiots  of  subterranean  forces. 
They  seem  to  follow  no  order,  and  to  defy 
any  attempt  to  reduce  them  to  system.  Yet 
a  closer  scrutiny  serves  to  establish  a  real 
connection  among  them.  They  are  found, 
for  the  most  part,  to  belong  to  great,  though 
fractured,  curves,  into  which  the  crust  of  the 
earth  has  been  folded.  In  low  countries,  far 
removed  from  any  great  mountain  range, 
the  rocks  often  present  scarcely  a  trace  of  dis- 
turbance, or  if  they  have  been  affected,  it  is 
chiefly  by  having  been  thrown  into  gentle 
undulations.  As  we  approach  the  higher 
grounds,  however,  they  manifest  increasing 
signs  of  commotion.  Their  undulations  be- 
come more  frequent  and  steeper,  until,  enter- 
ing within  the  mountain  region,  we  find  the 
rocks  curved,  crumpled,  fractured,  inverted, 
tossed  over  each  other  into  yawning  gulf  and 
towering  crest,  like  billows  arrested  at  the 
height  of  a  furious  storm. 

Yet  even  in  the  midst  of  such  apparent 
chaos  it  is  not  impossible  to  trace  the  funda- 
mental law  and  order  by  which  it  is  underlaid. 
The  prime  fact  to  be  noted  is  the  universal 
plication  and  crumpling  of  rocks  which  were 
at  first  nearly  horizontal.  From  the  gentle 
undulations  of  the  strata  beneath  the  plains 
to  their  violent  contortion  and  inversion  among 
the  mountains,  there  is  that  insensible  grada- 
tion which  connects  the  whole  of  these  dis- 
turbances as  parts  of  one  common  process. 
They  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  any  mere 
local  movements,  though  such  movements  no 
doubt  took  place  abundantly.  The  existence, 
of  a  mountain  chain  is  not  to  be  explained  by 
a  special  upheaval  or  series  of  upheavals 
caused  by  an  expansive  force  acting  from 
below.  Manifestly  the  elevation  is  only  one 
phase  of  a  vast  terrestrial  movement  which 
has  extended  over  whole  continents,  and  has 
affected  plains  as  well  as  high  grounds. 

The  only  cause  which,  so  far  as  our  present 
knowledge  goes,  could  have  produced  such 
widespread  changes  is  a  general  contraction 
of  the  earth's  mass.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  at  one  time  our  planet  existed  in  a  gase- 
?us,  then  in  a  liquid  condition.  Since  these 


i  early  periods  it  has  continued  to  lose  heat, 
and  consequently  to  contract  and  to  grow 
more  and  more  solid,  until,  as  the  physicists 
insist,  it  has  now  become  practically  as  rigid 
as  a  globe  of  glass  or  of  steel.  But  in  the 
course  of  the  contraction,  after  the  solid  ex- 
ternal crust  was  formed,  the  inner  hot  nucleus 
has  lost  heat  more  rapidly  than  the  crust,  and 
has  tended  to  shrink  inward  from  it.  As  a 
consequence  of  this  internal  movement,  the 
outer  solid  shell  has  sunk  down  upon  the  re- 
treating nucleus.  In  so  doing,  it  has  of  course 
had  to  accommodate  itself  to  a  diminished 
area,  and  this  it  could  only  accomplish  by 
undergoing  plication  and  fracture.  Though 
the  analogy  is  not  a  very  exact  one,  we  may 
liken  our  globe  to  a  shriveled  apple.  The 
skin  of  the  apple  does  not  contract  equally. 
As  the  internal  moisture  passes  off,  and  the 
bulk  of  the  fruit  is  .reduced,  the  once  smooth 
exterior  becomes  here  and  there  corrugated 
and  dimpled. 

Without  entering  into  this  difficult  problem 
in  physical  geology,  it  may  suffice  if  we  carry 
with  us  the  idea  that  our  globe  must  once 
have  had  a  greater  diameter  than  it  now  pos- 
sesses, and  that  the  crumpling  of  its  outer 
layers,  whether  due  to  mere  contraction  or, 
as  has  been  suggested,  to  the  escape  also  of 
subterranean  vapors,  affords  evidence  of  this 
diminution.  A  little  reflection  suffices  to 
show  us  that,  even  without  any  knowledge  of 
the  actual  history  of  the  contraction,  we  might 
anticipate  that  the  effects  would  neither  be 
continuous  nor  everywhere  uniform.  The 
solid  crust  would  not,  we  may  be  sure,  sub- 
side as  fast  as  the  mass  inside.  It  would,  for 
a  time  at  least,  cohere  and  support  itself,  un- 
til at  last,  gravitation  proving  too  much  for 
its  strength,  it  would  sink  down.  And  the 
areas  and  amount  of  descent  would  be  greatly 
regulated  by  the  varying  thickness  and  struc- 
ture of  the  crust.  Subsidence  would  not 
take  place  everywhere  ;  for,  as  a  consequence 
of  the  narrower  space  into  which  the  crust 
sank,  some  regions  would  necessarily  be 
pushed  up.  These  conditions  appear  to  have 
been  fulfilled  in  the  past  history  of  the  earth. 
There  is  evidence  that  the  terrestrial  disturb- 
ance has  been  renewed  again  and  again,  after 
long  pauses,  and  that,  while  the  ocean  basins 
have  on  the  whole  been  the  great  areas  of  de- 
pression, the  continents  have  been  the  lines 
of  uprise  or  relief,  where  the  rocks  were 
crumpled  and  pushed  out  of  the  way.  Para- 
doxical, therefore,  as  the  statement  may  ap- 
pear, it  is  nevertheless  strictly  true,  that  the 
solid  land,  considered  with  reference  to  the 
earth's  surface  as  a  whole,  is  the  consequence 
of  subsidence  rather  than  of  upheaval. 

Grasping,  then,  this  conception  of  the  real 
character  of  the  movements  to  which  the  earth 
owes  its  present  surface  configuration,  we  are 
furnished  with  fresh  light  for  exploring  the 
ancient  history  and  growth  of  the  solid  land. 
The  great  continental  ridges  seem  to  lie 
nearly  on  the  site  of  the  earliest  lines  of  relief 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


39 


from  the  strain  of  contraction.  They  were 
forced  up  between  the  subsiding  oceanic 
basins  at  a  very  early  period  of  geological 
history.  In  each  succeeding  epoch  of  move- 
ment they  were  naturally  used  over  again, 
and  received  an  additional  push  upward. 
Hence  we  see  the  meaning  of  the  evidence 
supplied  by  the  sedimentary  rocks  as  to  shal- 
low seas  and  proximity  of  land.  These  rocks 
could  not  have  been  otherwise  produced. 
They  were  derived  from  the  waste  of  the 
land,  and  were  deposited  near  the  land.  For 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  every  mass  of 
land  as  soon  as  it  appeared  above  water  was 
at  once  attacked  by  the  ceaseless  erosion  of 
moving  water  and  atmospheric  influences, 
and  immediately  began  to  furnish  materials 
for  the  construction  of  future  lands  to  be 
afterward  raised  out  of  the  sea. 

Each  great  period  of  contraction  elevated 
anew  the  much-worn  land,  and  at  the  same 
time  brought  the  consolidated  marine  sedi- 
ments above  water  as  parts  of  a  new  terres- 
trial surface.  Again  a  long  interval  would 
ensue,  marked  perhaps  by  a  slow  subsidence 
both  of  the  land  and  sea-bottom.  Meanwhile 
the  surface  of  the  land  was  channeled  and 
lowered,  and  its  detritus  was  spread  over  the 
sea-floor,  until  another  era  of  disturbance 
raised  it  once  more  with  a  portion  of  the  sur- 
rounding ocean-bed.  These  successive  up- 
ward and  downward  movements  explain  why 
the  sedimentary  formations  do  not  occur  as  a 
continuous  series,  but  often  lie  each  upon  the 
upturned  and  worn  edges  of  its  predecessors. 

Returning  now  to  the  chronological  se- 
quence indicated  by  the  organic  remains  pre- 
served among  the  sedimentary  rocks,  we  see 
how  it  may  be  possible  to  determine  the  rela- 
tive order  of  the  successive  upheavals  of  a 
continent.  If,  for  example,  a  group  of  rocks, 
which  as  before  may  be  called  A,  were  found 
to  have  been  upturned  and  covered  over  by 
undisturbed  beds  C,  the  disturbance  could 
be  affirmed  to  have  occurred  at  some  part  of 
the  epoch  represented  elsewhere  by  the  miss- 
ing series  B.  If,  again,  the  group  C  were 
observed  to  have  been  subsequently  tilted, 
and  to  pass  under  the  gently-inclined  or  hori- 
zontal strata  E,  a  second  period  of  disturb- 
ance could  be  proved  to  have  occurred  be- 
tween the  time  of  C  and  E. 

I  have  referred  to  the  unceasing  destruction 
of  its  surface  which  the  land  undergoes  from 
the  time  when  it  emerges  out  of  the  sea.  As 
a  rule,  our  conceptions  of  the  rate  of  this 
degradation  are  exceedingly  vague.  Yet  they 
may  be  easily  made  more  definite  by  a  con- 
sideration of  present  changes  on  the  surface 
of  the  land.  Every  river  carries  yearly  to 
the  sea  an  immense  amount  of  sand  and  mud. 
But  this  amount  is  capable  of  measurement. 
It  represents,  of  course,  the  extent  to  which 
the  general  level  of  the  surface  of  the  river's 
drainage  basin  is  annually  lowered.  Accord- 
ing to  such  measurements  and  computations 
as  have  been  already  made,  it  appears  that 


somewhere  about  one-sixthousandth  of  a  foot 
is  every  year  removed  from  the  surface  of  ks 
drainage  basin  by  a  large  river.  This  seems 
a  small  fraction,  yet  by  the  power  of  mere 
addition  it  soon  mounts  up  to  a  large  total. 
Taking  the  mean  level  of  Europe  to  be  600 
feet,  its  surface,  if  everywhere  worn  away  at 
what  seems  to  be  the  present  mean  normal 
rate,  would  be  entirely  reduced  to  the  sea- 
level  in  a  little  more  than  three  and  a  half 
millions  of  years. 

But  of  course  the  waste  is  not  uniform 
over  the  whole  surface.  It  is  greatest  on 
the  slopes  and  valleys,  least  on  the  more 
level  grounds.  A  few  years  ago,  in  making 
some  estimates  of  the  ratios  between  the  rates 
of  wast  on  these  areas,  I  assumed  that  the 
tracts  of  more  rapid  erosion  occupy  only  one- 
ninth  of  the  whole  surface  affected,  and  that 
in  these  the  rate  of  destruction  is  nine  times 
greater  than  on  the  more  level  spaces.  Tak- 
ing these  proportions,  and  granting  that 
one-sixthousandth  of  a  foot  is  the  actual  ascer- 
:ained  amount  of  loss  from  the  whole  surface, 
we  learn  by  a  simple  arithmetical  process  that 
one-twelfth  of  an  inch  is  carried  away  from 
the  plains  and  table-lands  in  seventy-five 
years,  while  the  same  amount  is  worn  out  of 
the  valleys  in  eight  and  a  half  years.  One 
foot  must  be  removed  from  the  former  in 
10,800  years,  and  from  the  latter  in  1,200 
years.  Hence,  at  the  present  rate  of  erosion, 
a  valley  1,000  feet  deep  may  be  excavated  in 
1,200,000  years — by  no  means  a  very  long 
period  in  the  conception  of  most  geologists. 

I  do  not  offer  these  figures  as  mbre  than 
tentative  results.  They  are  based,  however, 
not  on  mere  guesses,  but  on  data  which, 
though  they  may  be  co- reeled  by  subsequent 
inquiry,  are  the  best  at  present  available,  and 
are  probably  not  far  from  the  truth.  They 
are  of  value  in  enabling  us  more  vividly  to 
realize  how  the  prodigious  waste  of  the  land, 
proved  by  the  existence  of  such  enormous 
masses  of  sedimentary  rock,  went  quietly  on 
age  after  age,  until  results  were  achieved 
which  seem  at  first  scarcely  possible  to  so  slow 
and  gentle  an  agency. 

It  is  during  this  quiet  process  of  decay  and 
removal  that  all  the  distinctive  minor  features 
of  the  land  are  wrought  out.  When  first 
elevated  from  the  sea,  the  land  doubtless 
presents  on  the  whole  a  comparatively  feature- 
less surface.  It  may  be  likened  to  a  block 
of  marble  raised  out  of  the  quarry — rough 
and  rude  in  outline,  massive  in  solidity  and 
strength,  but  giving  no  indication  of  the 
grace  into  which  it  will  grow  under  the  hand 
of  the  sculptor.  What  are  the  effects  upon 
the  marble  block,  nature  accomplishes  upon 
the  surface  of  the  land.  Her  tools  are  many 
and  varied — air,  frost  rain,  springs,  torrents, 
rivers,  avalanches,  glaciers,  and  the  sea — 
each  producing  its  own  characteristic  traces 
in  the  sculpture.  With  these  implements, 
out  of  the  huge  bulk  of  the  land,  she  cuts  the 
valleys  and  ravines,  scoops  the  lake-basins, 


40 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


hews  with  bold  hand  the  colossal  outlines  of 
the  mountains,  carves  out  peak  and  crag, 
crest  and  cliff,  chisels  the  courses  of  the  tor- 
rents, splinters  the  sides  of  the  precipices, 
spreads  out  the  alluvium  of  the  rivers,  and 
piles  up  the  moraines  of  the  glaciers. 
Patiently  and  unceasingly  has  this  great 
earth-sculptor  sat  at  her  task  since  the  land 
first  rose  above  the  sea,  washing  down  into 
the  ocean  the  debris  of  her  labor,  to  form  the 
materials  for  the  framework  of  future 
countries  ;  and  there  she  will  remain  at  work 
so  long  as  mountains  stand,  and  rain  falls, 
and  rivers  flow. 

II.     THE    GROWTH    OF    THE    EUROPEAN 
CONTINENT. 

Passing  now  from  the  general  principles  with 
which  we  have  hitherto  been  dealing,  we  may 
seek  an  illustration  of  their  application  to  the 
actual  history  of  a  large  mass  of  land.  For 
this  purpose  let  me  ask  your  attention  to 
some  of  the  more  salient  features  in  the 
gradual  growth  of  Europe.  This  continent 
has  not  the  simplicity  of  structure  elsewhere 
recognizable  ;  but  without  entering  into  de- 
tail or  following  a  continuous  sequence  of 
events,  our  present  purpose  will  be  served  by 
a  few  broad  outlines  of  the  condition  of  the 
European  area  at  successive  geological  pe- 
riods. 

It  is  the  fate  of  continents,  no  less  than  of 
the  human  communities  that  inhabit  them,  to 
have  their  first  origin  shrouded  in  obscurity. 
When  the  curtain  of  darkness  begins  to  rise 
from  our  primeval  Europe,  it  reveals  to  us  a 
scene  marvelously  unlike  that  of  the  existing 
continent.  The  land  then  lay  chiefly  to  the 
north  and  northwest,  probably  extending  as 
far  as  the  edge  of  the  great  submarine  pla- 
teau by  which  the  European  ridge  is  prolonged 
under  the  Atlantic  for  230  miles  to  the  west 
of  Ireland.  Worn  fragments  of  that  land 
exist  in  Finland,  Scandinavia,  and  the  north- 
west of  Scotland,  and  there  are  traces  of 
what  seem  to  have  been  some  detached  is- 
lands in  Central  Europe,  notably  in  Bohemia 
and  Bavaria.  Its  original  height  and  extent 
can  of  course  never  be  known  ;  but  some  idea 
of  them  may  be  formed  by  considering  the 
bulk  of  solid  rock  which  was  formed  out  of 
the  waste  of  that  land.  I  find  that  if  we  take 
merely  one  portion  of  the  detritus  washed 
from  its  surface  and  laid  down  in  the  sea — 
viz., that  which  is  comprised  in  what  is  termed 
the  Silurian  system — and  if  we  assume  that 
it  spreads  over  60,000  square  miles  of  Britain 
with  an  average  thickness  of  16,000  feet,  or  3 
miles,  which  is  probably  under  the  truth, 
then  we  obtain  the  enormous  mass  of  180,000 
cubic  miles.  The  magnitude  of  this  pile  of 
material  may  be  better  realized  if  we  reflect 
that  it  would  form  a  mountain  ridge  three 
times  as  long  as  the  Alps,  or  from  the  North 
Cape  to  Marseilles  (1,800),  with  a  breadth  of 
more  than  33  miles,  and  an  average  height 


of  16,000  feet — that  is,  higher  th-.n  the  sum- 
mit of  Mount  Blanc.  All  this  vast  pile  of 
sedimentary  rock  was  worn  from  the  slopes 
and  shores  of  the  primeval  northern  land. 
Yet  it  represents  but  a  small  fraction  of  the 
material  so  removed,  for  the  sea  of  that  an- 
cient time  spread  over  nearly  the  whole  of 
Europe  eastward  into  Asia,  and  everywhere 
received  a  tribute  of  sand  and  mud  from  the 
adjoining  shores. 

There  is  perhaps  no  mass  of  rock  so  strik- 
ing in  its  general  aspect  as  that  of  which  this 
northern  embryo  of  Europe  consisted.  It 
lacks  the  variety  of  composition,  structure, 
color,  and  form,  which  distinguishes  rocks  of 
more  modern  growth  ;  but  in  dignity  of 
massive  strength  it  stands  altogether  unrivaled. 
From  the  headlands  of  the  Hebrides  to  the 
far  fjords  of  Arctic  Norway  it  rises  up  grim 
and  defiant  of  the  elements.  Its  veins  of 
quartz,  feldspar,  and  hornblende  project  from 
every  boss  and  crag  like  the  twisted  and 
knotted  sinews  of  a  magnificent  torso.  Well 
does  the  old  gneiss  of  the  north  deserve  to 
have  been  made  the  foundation-stone  of  a 
continent. 

What  was  the  character  of  the  vegetation 
that  clothed  this  earliest  prototype  of  Europe 
is  a  question  to  which  at  present  no  definite 
answer  is  possible.  We  know,  however,  that 
the  shallow  sea  which  spread  from  the  Atlan- 
tic southward  and  eastward  over  most  of 
Europe  was  tenanted  by  an  abundant  and 
characteristic  series  of  invertebrate  animals — 
trilobites,  graptolites,  cystideans.brachiopods, 
and  cephalopods,  strangely  unlike,  on  the 
whole,  to  anything  living  in  our  waters  now, 
but  which  then  migrated  freely  along  the 
shores  of  the  Arctic  land  between  what  are 
now  America  and  Europe. 

The  floor  of  this  shallow  sea  continued  to 
sink,  until  over  Britain,  at  least,  it  had  gone 
down  several  miles.  Yet  the  water  remained 
shallow  because  the  amount  of  sediment  con- 
stantly poured  into  it  from  the  northwest 
filled  it  up  about  as  fast  as  the  bottom  sub- 
sided. Tnis  slow  subterranean  movement 
was  varied  by  uprisings  here  and  there,  and 
notably  by  the  outburst  at  successive  periods 
of  a  great  group  of  active  submarine  volca- 
noes over  Wales,  the  Lake  district,  and  the 
south  of  Ireland  ;  but  at  the  close  of  the 
Silurian  period  a  vast  series  of  disturbances 
took  place,  as  the  consequence  of  which  the 
first  rough  outlines  of  the  European  conti- 
nent were  blocked  out.  The  floor  of  the  sea 
was  raised  into  long  ridges  of  land,  among 
which  were  some  on  the  site  of  the  Alps,  the 
Spanish  peninsula,  and  the  hills  of  the  west 
and  north  of  Britain.  The  thick  mass  of 
marine  sediment  was  crumpled  up,  and  here 
and  there  even  converted  into  hard  crystal- 
line rock.  Large  inclosed  basins,  gradually 
cut  off  from  the  sea,  like  the  modern  Cas- 
pian and  Sea  of  Aral,  extended  from  beyond 
the  west  of  Ireland  across  to  Scandinavia  and 
even  into  the  west  of  Russia.  These  lakes 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


abounded  in  bone-covered  fishes  of  strange 
and  now  long-extinct  types,  while  the  land 
around  was  clothed  with  a  club-moss  and 
reed-like  vegetation — Psilophyton,  Sigillaria, 
Calami te,  etc. — the  oldest  terrestrial  flora  of 
which  any  abundant  records  have  yet  been 
found  in  Europe.  The  sea,  dotted  with 
numerous  islands,  appears  to  have  covered 
most  of  the  heart  of  the  continent. 

A  curious  fact  deserves  to  be  noticed  here. 
During  the  convulsions  by  which  the  sedi- 
ments of  the  Silurian  sea-floor  were  crumpled 
up,  crystallized,  and  elevated  into  land,  the 
area  of  Russia  seems  to  have  remained  nearly 
unaffected.  Not  only  so,  but  the  same  im- 
munity from  violent  disturbance  has  pre- 
vailed over  that  vast  territory  during  all  sub- 
sequent geological  periods.  The  Ural 
Mountains  on  the  east  have  again  and  again 
served  as  a  line  of  relief,  and  have  been  from 
time  to  time  ridged  up  anew.  The  German 
domains  on  the  west  have  likewise  suffered 
extreme  convulsion.  But  the  wide  interven- 
ing plateau  of  Russia  has  apparently  always 
maintained  its  flatness  either  as  sea-bottom 
or  as  terrestrial  plains.  As  I  have  already 
remarked,  there  has  been  a  remarkable  per- 
sistence alike  in  exposure  to  and  immunity 
from  terrestrial  disturbance.  Areas  that  lay 
along  lines  of  weakness  have  suffered  re- 
peatedly in  successive  geological  revolutions, 
while  tracts  outside  of  these  regions  of  con- 
vulsion have  simply  moved  gently  up  or 
down  without  material  plication  or  fracture. 

By  the  time  of  the  coal  growths,  the  aspect 
of  the  European  area  had  still  further  changed. 
It  then  consisted  of  a  series  of  low  ridges  or 
islands  in  the  midst  of  a  shallow  sea  or  of 
wide  salt-water  lagoons.  A  group  of  islands 
occupied  the  site  of  some  of  the  exisiting 
high  grounds  of  Britain.  A  long,  irregular 
ridge  ran  across  what  is  now  France  from 
Brittany  to  the  Mediterranean.  The  Spanish 
peninsula  stood  as  a  detached  island.  The 
future  Alps  rose  as  a  long,  low  ridge,  to  the 
north  of  the  eastern  edge  of  which  lay  another 
insular  space,  where  now  we  find  the  high 
grounds  of  Bavaria  and  Bohemia.  The  shal- 
low waters  that  wound  among  these  scattered 
patches  of  land  were  gradually  silted  up. 
Many  of  them  became  marshes,  crowded  with 
a  most  luxuriant  cryptogamic  vegetation, 
specially  of  lycopods  and  ferns,  while  the  dry 
grounds  waved  green  with  coniferous  trees. 
By  a  slow  intermittent  subsidence,  islet  after 
islet  sank  beneath  the  verdant  swamps.  Each 
fresh  depression  submerged  the  rank  jungles 
and  buried  them  under  sand  and  mud,  where 
they  were  eventually  compressed  into  coal. 
To  this  united  co-operation  of  dense  vege- 
table growth,  accumulation  of  sediment,  and 
slow  subterranean  movement,  Europe  owes 
her  coal-fields.  All  this  time  the  chief  area 
of  high  ground  in  Europe  appears  still  to  have 
lain  to  the  north  and  northwest.  The  old 
gnarled  gneiss  of  that  region,  though  con- 
stantly worn  down  and  furnishing  materials 


toward  each  new  formation,  yet  rose  up  as 
land.  It  no  doubt  received  successive  eleva- 
tions during  the  periods  of  disturbance,  which 
more  or  less  compensated  for  the  constant 
loss  from  its  surface. 

The  next  scene  we  may  contemplate  brings 
before  us  a  series  of  salt  lakes,  covering  the 
center  of  the  continent  from  the  north  of  Ire- 
land to  the  heart  of  Poland.  These  basins 
were  formed  by  the  gradual  cutting  off  of 
portions  of  the  sea  which  had  spread  over 
the  region.  Their  waters  were  red  and 
bitter,  and  singularly  unfavorable  to  life.  On. 
the  low  intervening  ridges  a  coniferous  and 
cycadaceous  vegetation  grew,  sometimes  in 
quantity  sufficient  to  supply  materials  for  the 
formation  of  coal  seams.  The  largest  of  these 
salt  lakes  stretched  from  the  edge  of  the  old 
plateau  of  Central  France  along  the  base  of 
the  Alpine  ridge  to  the  high  ground  of  Bo- 
hemia, and  included  the  basin  of  the  Rhine 
from  Bale  down  to  the  ridge  beyond  Mayence, 
which  has  been  subsequently  cut  through  by 
the  river  into  the  picturesque  gorge  between 
Bingen  and  the  Siebengebirge.  This  lake 
was  filled  up  with  red  sand  and  mud,  lime- 
stone, and  beds  of  rock  salt.  Where  the 
eastern  Alps  now  rise  the  opener  waters  were 
the  scene  of  a  long-continued  growth  of  dolo- 
mite, out  of  which  in  later  ages  the  famous- 
dolomite  mountains  of  the  Tyrol  were  carved. 

These  salt  lakes  of  the  Triassic  period  seem 
to  have  been  everywhere  quietly  effaced  by  a 
widespread  depression,  which  allowed  the 
water  of  the  main  ocean  once  more  to  over- 
spread the  greater  part  of  Europe.  This  slow 
subsidence  went  on  so  long  as  to  admit  of 
the  accumulation  of  limestone,  shale,  and 
sandstone,  several  thousand  feet  in  thickness, 
and  probably  to  bring  most  of  the  insular 
tracts  of  Central  Europe  under  watef.  To- 
this  period,  termed  by  geologists  the  Jurassic, 
we  can  trace  back  the  origin  of  a  large  part 
of  the  rock  now  forming  the  surface  of  the 
continent,  from  the  low  plains  of  Central 
England  up  to  the  crests  of  the  northern  Alps, 
while  in  the  Mediterranean  basin,  rocks  of 
the  same  age  cover  a  large  area  of  the  pla- 
teau of  Spain,  and  form  the  central  mass  of 
the  chain  of  the  Apennines.  It  is  interesting 
to  know  that  the  northwest  of  Britain  con- 
tinued still  to  rise  as  land  in  spite  of  all  the 
geographical  changes  which  had  taken  place 
to  the  south  and  east.  We  can  trace  even 
yet  the  shores  of  the  Jurassic  sea  along  the 
skirts  of  the  mountains  of  Skye  and  Ross- 
shire. 

The  next  long  era,  termed  the  Cretaceous, 
was  likewise  more  remarkable  for  slow  accu- 
mulation of  rock  under  the  sea  than  for  the 
formation  of  new  land.  During  that  time 
the  Atlantic  sent  its  waters  across  the  whole 
of  Europe  and  into  Asia.  But  they  were 
probably  nowhere  more  than  a  few  hundred, 
feet  deep  over  the  site  of  our  continent,  even 
at  their  deepest  part.  Upon  their  bottom 
there  gathered  a  vast  mass  of  calcareous  mud, 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


composed  in  great  part  of  foramintfera, 
corals,  echinoderms,  and  mollusks.  Our 
English  chalk  which  ranges  across  the  north 
of  France,  Belgium,  Denmark,  and  the  North 
of  Germany,  represents  a  portion  of  the  de- 
posits of  that  sea-floor,  probably  accumulated 
in  a  northern,  somewhat  isolated  basin,  while 
the  massive  hippurite  limestone  of  Southern 
Europe  represents  the  deposits  of  the  opener 
ocean.  Some  of  the  island  spaces  which  had 
remained  for  a  vast  period  above  water,  and 
had  by  their  degradation  supplied  materials 
for  the  sediment  of  successive  geological 
formations,  now  went  down  beneath  the  Cre- 
taceous sea.  The  ancient  high  grounds  of 
Bohemia,  the  Alps,  the  Pyrenees,  and  the 
Spanish  table-land  were  either  entirely  sub- 
merged, or  at  least  had  their  area  very  con- 
siderably reduced.  The  submergence  like- 
wise affected  the  northwest  of  Britain  ;  the 
western  highlands  of  Scotland  lay  more  than 
1,000  feet  below  their  present  level. 

When  we  turn  to  the  succeeding  geological 
period,  that  of  the  Eocene,  the  proofs  of 
widespread  submergence  are  still  more 
striking.  A  large  part  of  the  Old  World 
seems  to  have  sunk  down  ;  for  we  find  that 
one  wide  sea  extended  across  the  whole  of 
Central  Europe  and  Asia.  It  was  at  the  close 
of  this  period  of  extreme  depression  that 
those  subterranean  movements  be^an  to 
which  the  present  configuration  of  Europe  is 
mainly  due.  The  Pyrenees,  Alps,  Apen- 
nines, Carpathians,  the  Caucasus,  and  the 
heights  of  Asia  Minor  mark,  as  it  were,  the 
crests  of  the  vast  earth-waves  into  wnich  the 
solid  framework  of  Europe  was  then  thrown.  | 

So  enormous  was  the  contortion  that,  as  may  j  ting  off  the  Pyrenees  and  Spain  from  the  rest 
be  seen  along  the  northern  Alps,  the  rocks  |  of  the  continent.  It  swept  round  the  north 
for  thousands  of  feet  were  completely  in-  I  of  France,  covering  the  rich  fields  of  Tou- 
verted,  this  inversion  being  accompanied  by  i  raine  and  the  wide  flats  of  the  Netherlands. 


than  Europe  now  can  boast.  Palms  of  Amer- 
ican types,  as  well  as  date  palms,  huge  Cali- 
fornian  pines  (Sequoia),  laurels,  cypresses, 
and  evergreen  oaks,  with  many  other  ever- 
green trees,  gave  a  distinctive  character  to  the 
vegetation.  Among  the  trees,  too,  were 
planes,  poplars,  maples,  willows,  oaks,  and 
other  ancestors  of  our  living  woods  and  for- 
ests ;  numerous  ferns  grew  in  the  underwood, 
while  clematis  and  vine  wound  themselves 
among  the  branches.  The  waters  were 
haunted  by  huge  pachyderms,  such  as  the 
dinofherium  and  hippopotamus,  while  the 
rhinoceros  and  mastodon  roamed  through  the 
woodlands. 

A  marked  feature  of  this  period  in  Europe 
was  the  abundance  and  activity  of  its  volca- 
noes. In  Hungary,  Rhineland,  and  Central 
France  numerous  vents  opened  and  poured 
out  their  streams  of  lava  and  showers  of 
ashes.  From  the  south  of  Antrim,  also, 
through  the  west  coast  of  Scotland,  the 
Faroe  Islands,  and  Iceland,  even  far  into 
Arctic  Greenland,  a  vast  series  of  fissure 
eruptions  poured  forth  successive  floods  of 
basalt,  fragments  of  which  now  form  the  ex- 
tensive volcanic  plateaux  of  these  regions. 

The  mild  climate  indicated  by  the  vegeta- 
tion in  the  deposits  of  the  Swiss  lake  prevailed 
even  into  Polar  latitudes,  for  the  remains  of 
numerous  evergreen  shrubs,  oaks,  maples, 
walnuts,  hazels,  and  many  other  trees  have 
been  found  in  the  far  north  of  Greenland,  and 
even  within  8°  15'  of  the  Pole.  The  sea 
still  occupied  much  of  the  lowlands  of  Eu- 
rope. Thus  it  ran  as  a  strait  between  the 
Bay  of  Biscay  and  the  Mediterranean,  cut- 


the  most  colossal  folding  and  twisting.  The 
massive  sedimentary  formations  were  crum- 
pled up  and  doubled  over  each  other,  as  we 


It  rolled  far  up  the  plains  of  the  Danube,  and 
stretched  thence  eastward  across  the  south  of 
Russia  into  Asia. 


light  fold  a  pile  of  cloth.  In  tde  midst  of  j  By  this  time  some  of  the  species  of  shells 
these  commotions  the  west  of  Europe  re-  i  which  still  people  the  European  seas  had  ap- 
mained  undisturbed.  It  is  strange  to  reflect :  peared.  So  long  have  they  been  natives  of 
that  the  soft  clays  and  sands  under  London  i  our  area  that  they  have  witnessed  the  rise  of  a 
are  as  old  as  some  of  the  hardened  rocks  j  great  part  of  the  continent.  Some  of  the 
which  have  been  upheaved  into  such  pictur-  j  most  stupendous  changes  which  they  have 
esque  peaks  along  the  northern  flanks  of  the  ,  seen  have  taken  place  in  the  basin  of  the 


Alps. 


Mediterranean,  where,  at  a  comparatively  re- 


After  the  completion  of  these  vast  terres-  cent  geological  period,  parts  of  the  sea-floor 
trial  disturbances,  the  outlines  of  Europe  be-  were  upheaved  to  a  height  of  3,000  feet.  It 
gan  distinctly  to  shape  themselves  into  their  |  was  then  that  the  breadth  of  the  Italian  penin- 
present  form.  The  Alps  rose  as  a  great  sula  was  increased  by  the  belt  of  lower  hills 
mountain  range,  flanked  on  fie  north  by  a  |  that  flanks  the  range  of  the  Apennines.  Then, 
vast  lake  which  covered  all  the  present  low-  i  too,  Vesuvius  and  yEtna  began  their  erup- 
lands  of  Switzerland,  and  stretched  north-  i  tions.  Among  these  later  geographical 
ward  across  a  part  of  the  Jura  Mountains,  j  events  also  we  must  place  the  gradual  isolation 
and  eastward  into  Germany.  The  size  of  i  of  the  Sea  of  Aral,  the  Caspian,  and  the  Black 
this  fresh  water  basin  may  be  inferred  from  j  Sea  from  the  rest  of  the  ocean,  which  is  be- 
the  fact  that  one  portion  only  of  the  sand  and  j  lieved  to  have  once  spread  from  the  Arctic 
gravel  that  accumulated  in  it  even  now  meas-  '  regions  down  the  west  of  Asia,  along  the  base 


ures  6,000  feet  in  thickness.  The  surround- 
ing land  was  densely  clothed  with  a  vegeta- 
tion indicative  of  a  much  warmer  climate 


of  the  Ural  Mountains  into  the  southeast  of 
Europe. 
The  last  scene  in   this   long   history  is  one 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


of  the  most  unexpected  of  all.  Europe,  hav-  I 
ing  nearly  its  present  height  and  outlines,  is  I 
found  swathed  deep  in  snow  and  ice.  Scan-  ' 
dinavia  and  Finland  are  one  vast  sheet  of 
ice,  that  creeps  down  from  the  watershed 
into  the  Atlantic  on  the  one  side,  and  into 
the  basin  of  the  Baltic  on  the  other.  All  the 
high  grounds  of  Great  Britain  are  similarly 
buried.  The  bed  of  the  North  Sea  as  well  as 
of  the  Baltic  is  in  great  measure  choked  with 
ice.  The  Alps, the  Pyreness,  the  Carpathians, 
and  the  Caucasus  send  down  vast  glaciers 
into  the  plains  at  their  base.  Northern  plants 
find  their  way  south  even  to  the  Pyrenees, 
while  the  reindeer,  musk-ox,  lemming,  and 
their  Actic  companions,  roam  far  and  wide 
over  France. 

As  a  result  of  the  prolonged  passage  of 
solid  masses  of'  ice  over  them,  the  rocks  on 
the  surface  of  the  continent,  when  once  more 
laid  bars  to  the  sun,  present  a  worn,  flowing 
outline.  They  have  been  hollowed  into 
basins,  ground  smooth,  and  polished.  Long 
mounds  and  wide  sheets  of  clay,  gravel,  and 
sand  have  been  left  over  the  low  grounds,  and 
the  hollows  between  them  are  filled  with  in- 
numerable tarns  and  lakes.  Crowds  of 
boulders  have  been  perched  on  the  sides  of 
the  hills  and  dropped  over  the  plains.  With 
the  advent  of  a  milder  temperature,  the  Arc- 
cic  vego.ation  gradually  disappears  from  the 
plains.  Driven  up  step  by  step  before  the 
advancing  flora  from  more  congenial  climates, 
it  retired  into  the  mountains,  and  there  to 
this  day'contiuues  to  maintain  itself.  The 
present  Alpine  flora  of  the  Pyrenees,  the  Alps, 
Britain,  and  Scandinavia,  is  thus  a  living  re- 
cord of  the  ice-age.  The  reindeer  and  his 
friends  have  long  since  been  forced  to  return 
to  their  northern  homes 

After  this  long  succession  of  physical  re- 
volutions, man  appears  as  a  denizen  of  the 
Europe  thus  prepared  for  him.  The  earliest 
records  of  his  presence  reveal  him  as  a  fisher 
and  hunter,  with  rude  flint-pointed  spear  ai  d 
harpoon.  And  doubtless  for  many  a  dim 
century  such  was  his  condition.  He  made 
no  more  impress  on  external  nature  than  one 
of  the  beasts  which  he  chased.  But  in  course 
of  time,  as  civilization  grew,  he  asserted  his 
claim  to  be  one  of  the  geographical  forces  of 
the  globe.  Not  content  with  gathering  the 
fruits  and  capturing  the  animals  which  he  found 
needful  for  his  wants,  he  gradually  entered 
into  a  contest  with  nature  to  subdue  the 
earth  and  to  possess  it.  Nowhere  has  this 
warfare  been  fought  out  so  vigorously  as 
on  the  surface  of  Europe.  On  the  one  hand, 
wide,  dark  regions  of  ancient  forest  have 
given  place  to  smiling  cornfields.  Peat  and 
moor  have  made  way  for  pasture  and  tillage. 
On  the  other  hand,  by  the  clearance  of  wood- 
lands the  rainfall  has  been  so  diminished 
that  drought  and  barrenness  have  spread 
where  verdu  e  anJ  luxuriance  once  pre 
vailed.  Rivers  have  been  straightened  and 
made  to  keep  their  channels,  the  sea  has 


been  barred  back  from  its  former  shores. 
For  many  generations  the  surface  of  the  con- 
tinent has  been  covered  with  roads,  villages 
and  towns,  bridges,  aqueducts  and  canals, 
to  which  this  century  has  added  a  multitu- 
dinous network  of  railways,  with  their  em- 
bankments  and  tunnels.  In  short,  wherever 
man  has  lived  the  ground  beneath  him  bears 
witness  to  his  presence.  It  is  slowly  covered 
with  a  stratum  either  wholly  formed  by  him 
or  due  in  great  measure  to  his  operations. 
The  soil  under  old  cities  has  been  increased 
to  a  depth  of  many  feet  by  the  rubbish  of 
his  buildings ;  the  level  of  the  streets 
of  modern  Rome  stands  high  above 
that  of  the  pavements  of  the  Caesars, 
and  that  again  above  the  roadways  of  the 
early  Republic.  Over  cultivated  fields  his 
potsherds  are  turned  up  in  abundance  by  the 
plow.  The  loam  has  risen  within  the 
walls  of  his  graveyards  as  generation  after 
generation  has  moldered  into  dust. 

ltmust.be  owned  that  man,  in  much  of 
his  struggle  with  the  world  around  him,  has 
fought  blindly  for  his  own  ultimate  interests. 
His  contest,  successful  for  the  moment,  has 
too  often  led  to  sure  and  sad  disaster. 
Stripping  forests  from  hill  and  mountain,  he 
has  gained  hi;  immediate  object  in  the  pos- 
session of  their  abundant  stores  of  timber  ; 
but  he  has  laid  open  the  slopes  to  be  parched 
by  drought,  or  swept  bare  by  rain.  Countries 
once  rich  in  beauty,  and  plenteous  in  all  that 
was  needful  for  his  support,  are  now  burnt 
and  barren,  or  almost  denuded  of  their  soil. 
Gradually  he  has  been  taught,  by  his  own 
bitter  experience,  that  while  his  aim  still  is 
to  subdue  the  earth,  he  can  attain  it,  not  by 
setting  nature  and  her  laws  at  defiance,  but 
by  enlisting  them  in  his  service.  He  has 
learnt  at  last  to  be  the  minister  and  in- 
terpreter of  nature,  and  he  finds  in  her  a 
ready  and  unrepining  slave. 

In  fine,  looking  back  across  the  long 
cycles  of  change  through  which  the  land  has 
been  shaped  into  its  present  form,  let  us 
realize  that  these  geographical  revolutions 
are  not  events  wholly  of  the  dim  past,  but 
that  they  are  still  in  progress.  So  slow  and 
measured  has  been  their  march,  that  even 
from  the  earliest  times  of  human  history 
they  seem  hardly  to  have  advanced  at  all. 
But  none  the  less  are  they  surely  and  steadily 
transpiring  around  us.  In  the  fall  of  rain 
and  the  flow  of  rivers,  in  the  bubble  of 
springs  and  the  silence  of  frost,  in  the  quiet 
creep  of  glaciers  and  the  tumultuous  rush  of 
ocean  waves,  in  the  tremor  of  the  earthquake 
and  the  outburst  of  the  volcano,  we  may 
recognize  the  same  play  of  terrestrial  forces 
by  which  the  framework  of  the  continents 
has  been  step  by  step  evolved.  In  this  light 
the  familar  phenomena  of  our  daily  ex- 
perience acquire  an  historical  interest  and 
dignity.  Through  them  \ve  are  enabled  to 
bring  the  remote  past  vivid'y  before  us,  and 
to  look  forward  hopefully  to  that  great  future 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


in  which,  in  the  physical  not  less  than  in  th 
moral  world,  man  is  to  be  a  fellow-worke 
with  God. 


VII. 

THE  GEOLOGICAL  INFLUENCE 
WHICH  HAVE  AFFECTED  TH] 
COURSE  OF  BRITISH  HISTORY. 

Probably  few  readers  realize  to  how  larg 
an  extent  the  events  of  history  have  been  in 
fluenced  by  the  geological  structure  of  th 
ground  whereon  they  have  been  enacted, 
propose  to  illustrate  this  influence  from  som 
of  the  more  salient  features  in  the  early  hu 
man  occupation  of  the  British  Islands,  and  in 
the  subsequent    historical    progress  of    th 
English  people.      No  better  proof  of  the 
reality  of  the  relation   in  question  could  be 
given  than  the  familiar  contrast  between  thi 
heart  of  England  and  the  heart  of  Scotland 
The  one  area  is  a  region  of  low  plains,  in 
.abited  by  an  English-speaking  race  ;   richly 
agricultural  in  one  part,  teeming  with  a  busy 
mining  population  in  another  ;  dotted  with 
large  cities  ;  the  air  often  foul  from  the  smoke 
of  thousands  of  chimneys,  and  resonant  with 
the  clanking  of  innumerable  manufactories 
and  the  screams  of  locomotives  flying  hither 
and  thither  over  a  network  of  railways.    The 
other  region  is  one  of  rugged  mountains  and 
narrow  glens  tenanted  by  a  Celtic  race  that, 
keeping  to  its  old  Gaelic  tongue  and  primitive 
habits,  has  never  built  towns,   hardly  even 
villages — a  region  partly  devoted  to  pasture 
and  still  haunted  by  the  game  and  wild  ani- 
mals of  primeval  times,  but  with  no  industrial 
centers,  no  manufactures  of  any  kind,  and 
only  a  feeble  agriculture  that  struggles  for 
existence  along  the  bottoms  of  the  valleys. 
Now,  why  should  two  parts  of  the  same  small 
country  differ  so  widely  from   each  other? 
To  give   a  complete  answer  to  the  question 
would  of  course  involve  a  detailed  examina- 
tion of  the  history  of  each   area.     But  we 
should  find  that  fundamentally  the  differences 
have  arisen   from   the  originally  utterly  dis- 
tinct geological  structure  of  the  two  regions. 
This  diversity  of  structure  initiated  the  di- 
vergences in  human   characteristics  even  in 
far  prehistoric  times,  and  it  continues,  even 
in  spite  of  the  blending  influences  of  modern 
civilization,  to   maintain   them   down  to  the 
present  day. 

Let  us  first  briefly  consider  what  was  the 
probable  condition  of  Britain  at  the  time 
when  the  earliest  human  beings  appeared  in 
the  country.  At  that  ancient  epoch  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  British  Islands  still 
formed  part  of  the  mainland  of  Continental 
Europe.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the 


>*n  IofrtheCt°ry  LeCtUre  at  the-  °Penin«  °.f  the  ses- 


general  level  of  these  islands  may  have  been 
considerably  higher  than  it  has  been  since. 
From  the  shape  of  the  bottom  of  the  Atlantic 
immediately  to  the  west  of  our  area,  as  re- 
vealed by  the  abundant  soundings  and  dredg- 
ings  of  recent  years,  it  is  evident  that  if  the 
British  Islands  were  now  raised  even  1,000 
feet  or  more  above  their  present  level,  they 
would  not  thereby  gain  more  than  a  belt  of 
lowland  somewhere  about  200  miles  broad  on 
their  western  border.  They  stand,  in  fact, 
nearly  upon  the  edge  of  the  great  European 
plateau  which,  about  230  miles  to  the  west 
of  them,  plunges  rapidly  down  into  the 
abysses  of  the  Atlantic.  It  is  perfectly  cer- 
tain, therefore,  that  though  our  area  was  for- 
merly prolonged  westward  beyond  its  present 
limits,  there  has  never  been  any  important 
mass  of  land  to  the  west  of  us  in  recent 
geological  times,  or  within  what  we  call  the 
luman  period,  probably  never  at  any  geolog- 
cal  epoch  at  all.  Every  successive  wave  of 
migration,  whether  of  plant  or  of  animal, 
must  have  come  from  the  other  or  eastern 
ide.  But  though  our  country  could  never 
lave  stretched  much  beyond  its  present  west- 
ward limits,  it  once  undoubtedly  spread  east- 
~ard  over  the  site  of  what  is  now  the  North 

ea.  Even  at  the  present  day,  an  elevation 
)f  less  than  six  hundred  feet  would  convert 
he  whole  of  that  sea  into  dry  land  from  the 
orth  of  Shetland  to  the  headlands  of  Brit- 
iny.  At  the  time  when  these  wide  plains 
nited  Britain  to  the  mainland,  the  Thames 
ras  no  doubt  a  tributary  of  the  Rhine,  which, 
n  its  course  northward,  may  have  received 
ther  affluents  from  the  east  of  Britain  before 
t  poured  its  waters  into  the  Atlantic  some- 

here  between  the  heights  of  Shetland  and  the 
mountainous  coasts  of  Southern  Norway. 

There  is  evidence  of  remarkable  oscillations 
f  climate  .- 1  the  epoch  of  the  advent  of  man 
nto  this  part  of  Europe.  A  time  of  intense 
old,  known  as  the  Ice  Age  or  Glacial  Period, 
as  drawing  to  a  close.  Its  glaciers,  frozen 
vers  and  lakes,  and  floating  icebergs,  had 
onverted  most  of  Britain,  and  the  whole  of 
Northern  Europe,  into  a  waste  of  ice  and 
now,  such  as  North  Greenland  still  is  ;  but 
ic  height  of  the  cold  was  past,  and  th  *e 
ow  came  intervals  of  milder  seasons,  wh>  \ 

e  wintry  mant'^  wfes  withdrawn  northward 
o  as  to  allow  the  fetation  and  the  roaming 
nimals  of  more  ten.^  -rate  latitudes  to  spread 
estward  into  Britain.  From  time  to  time  a 
enewal  of  the  cold  once  more  sent  down  the 
"  ciers  into  the  valleys  or  even  into  the  sea, 
oze  the  rivers  over  in  winter,  and  allowed 
ic  Arctic  flora  and  fauna  again  to  migrate 
mthward  into  tracts  from  which  the  temper- 
e  plants  and  animals  were  forced  by  the 
creasing  cold  to  retreat.  At  last,  however, 
ic  Arctic  conditions  of  climate  ceased  to  re- 
ppear,  and  the  Arctic  vegetation,  with  its 
companying  reindeer,  musk-sheep,  lem- 
ing,  Arctic  fox,  glutton,  and  other  northern 
nimals,  retreated  from  our  low  grounds. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


Of  these  ancient  chilly  periods,  however,  the 
Arctic  plants  still  found  on  our  mountain-tops 
remain  as  living  witnesses,  for  they  are  doubt- 
less descendants  of  the  northern  vegetation 
which  overspread  Britain  when  still  part  of 
the  continent,  and  before  the  arrival  of  our 
present  temperate  flora  and  fauna. 

Previous  to  the  final  retreat  of  the  ice,  the 
alternating  warmer  intervals  brought  into 
Britain  many  wild  animals  from  wilder  re- 
gions to  the  south.  Horses,  stags,  Irish 
elks,  roe  deer,  wild  oxen,  and  bisons  roamed 
over  the  plains  ;  wild  boars,  three  kinds  of 
rhinoceros,  two  kinds  of  elephant,  brown 
bears  and  grizzly  bears,  haunted  the  forests 
The  rivers  were  tenanted  by  the  hippo- 
potamus, beaver,  otter,  water-rat ;  while 
among  the  carnivora  were  wolves,  foxes, 
wild  cats,  hyenas,  and  lions.  Many  of  these 
animals  must  have  moved  in  herds  across  the 
plains,  over  which  the  North  Sea  now  rolls. 
Their  bones  have  been  dredged  up  in  hun- 
dreds by  the  fishermen  from  the  surface  of 
the  Dogger-Bank. 

Such  were  the  denizens  of  southern  Eng- 
land when  man  made  his  first  appearance 
there.  It  seems  not  unlikely  that  he  came 
some  time  before  the  close  of  the  long  Ice 
Age.  He  may  have  been  temporarily 
driven  out  of  the  country  by  the  return- 
ing cold  periods,  but  would  find  his 
way  back  as  the  climate  ameliorated. 
Much  ingenuity  has  been  expended  in 
tracing  a  succession  of  civilization  in  this 
primeval  human  population  of  Britain. 
Among  the  records  of  its  presence  there  have 
been  supposed  to  be  traces  of  an  earlier  race 
of  hunters  of  a  low  order,  furnished  with  the 
rudest  possible  stone  implements  ;  and  a 
later  people,  who,  out  of  the  bones  of  the 
animals  they  captured,  supplied  themselves 
with  deftly-made,  and  even  artistically-deco- 
rated weapons.  All  that  seems  safely  de- 
ducible  from  the  evidence,  however,  may  be 
summed  up  in  saying  that  the  paleolithic 
men,  or  men  of  the  older  stone  period,  who 
hunted  over  the  plains,  and  fished  in  the 
rivers,  and  lived  in  the  caves  of  this  country, 
have  left  behind  them  implements,  rude  in- 
deed, but  no  doubt  quite  suitable  for  their 
purpose*;  and  likewise  other  weapons  and 
tools  of  a  more  finished  kind,  which  bear  a 
close  relationship  to  the  implements  still  in 
use  among  the  modern  Esquimaux.  It  has 
been  suggested  that  the  Esquimaux  are  their 
direct  descendants,  driven  into  the  inhospitable 
north  by  the  pressure  of  more  warlike  races. 

The  rude  hunter  and  dweller  in  caves 
passed  away  before  the  advent  of  the  farmer 
and  herdsman  of  the  Neolithic  or  later  stone 
period.  We  know  much  more  of  him  than 
his  predecessors.  He  was  short  of  stature, 
with  an  oblong  head,  aad  probably  a  dark 
skin  and  dark  curly  hair.  His  implements  of 
stone  were  often  artistically  fashioned  and 
polished.  Though  still  a  hunter  and  fisher, 
be  knew  also  how  to  farm.  He  had  flocks 


and  herds  of  domestic  animals  ;  he  was  ac- 
quainted with  the  arts  of  spinning  and 
weaving,  could  make  a  rude  kind  of  pottery, 
and  excavate  holes  and  subterranean  galleries 
in  the  chalk  for  the  extraction  of  flints  for  his 
weapons  and  tools.  That  he  had  some  no- 
tion of  a  future  state  may  be  inferred  from 
arrow-heads,  pottery,  and  implements  of  vari- 
ous kinds  which  are  found  in  his  graves,  evi- 
dently  placed  there  for  the  use  of  the  departed. 
He  has  been  regarded  as  probably  of  a 
Non-Aryan  race,  of  which  perhaps  the  mod- 
ern Basques  are  lineal  descendants,  isolated 
among  the  fastnesses  of  the  Pyrenees  by  the 
advance  of  younger  tribes.  Traces  of  his 
former  presence  in  Britain  have  been  conjec- 
tured to  be  recognizable  in  the  small  dark 
Welshmen,  and  the  short  swarthy  Irishmen  of  . 
the  west  of  Ireland. 

When  the  earliest  Neolithic  men  appeared 
in  this  region,  Britain  may  have  still  been 
united  to  the  coniinent.  But  the  connec- 
tion was  eventually  broken.  It  is  obvious 
that  no  event  in  the  geological  history  of 
Britain  can  have  had  a  more  powerful  influ- 
ence on  its  human  history  than  the  separation 
of  the  country  as  a  group  of  islands  cut  off 
by  a  considerable  channel  from  direct  com- 
munication with  the  mainland  of  Europe. 
Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  how  the  discon- 
nection was  probably  brought  abot:t. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  at  the  time 
when  Britain  became  an  island,  the  general 
contour  of  the  country  was,  on  the  whole, 
what  it  is  still.  The  same  group's  of  moun- 
tains rose  above  the  same  plains  and  valleys, 
which  were  traversed  by  the  same  winding 
rivers.  We  know  that  in  the  glacial  and 
later  periods  considerable  oscillations  of  level 
took  place ;  for,  on  the  one  hand,  beds  of 
sea-shells  are  found  at  heights  of  1,200  or 
1,300  feet  above  the  present  sea-level ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  ancient  forest-covered 
soils  are  now  seen  below  tide-mark.  It  was 
doubtless  mainly  subsidence  that  produced 
the  isolation  of  Britain.  The  whole  area 
slowly  sank,  until  the  lower  tracts  were  sub 
merged,  the  last  low  ridge  connecting  the 
land  with  France  was  overflowed,  and  Britain 
became  a  group  of  islands.  But  unquestion- 
ably the  isolation  was  helped  by  the  ceaseless 
wear  and  tear  of  the  superficial  agencies 
which  are  still  busy  at  the  same  task.  The 
slow  but  sure  washing  of  descending  rain, 
the  erosion  of  water-courses,  and  the  gnaw- 
ing of  sea-waves,  all  told  in  the  long  degra- 
dation. And  thus,  foundering  from  want  6f 
support  below,  and  eaten  away  by  attacks 
above,  the  low  lands  gradually  diminished, 
and  disappeared  beneath  the  sea. 

Now,  in  this  process  of  separation,  Ireland 
unfortunately  became  detached  from  Britain. 
We  have  had  ample  occasion  in  recent  years 
to  observe  how  much  this  geological  change 
has  affected  our  domestic  history.  That  the 
isolation  of  Ireland  took  place  before  Britain 
had  been  separated  from  the  continent  may 


4C 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


be  inferred  from  a  comparison  of  the  distri- 
bution of  living  plants  and  animals.  Of 
course,  the  interval  which  had  then  elapsed 
since  the  submergences  and  ice-sheets  of  the 
glacial  period  must  have  been  of  prodigious 
duration,  if  measured  by  ordinary  human 
standards.  Yet  it  was  too  short  to  enable  the 
plants  and  animals  of  Central  Europe  com- 
pletely to  possess  themselves  of  the  British 
area.  Generation  after  generation  they  were 
moving  westward,  but  long  before  they  could 
all  reach  the  northwestern  seaboard,  Ireland 
had  become  an  island,  so  that  their  further 
march  in  that  direction  was  arrested,  and  be- 
fore the  subsequent  advancing  bands  had 
come  as  far  as  Britain,  it  too  had  been  sepa- 
rated by  a  sea  channel  which  finally  barred 
their  progress.  Comparing  the  total  land 
mammals  of  the  west  of  Europe,  we  find  that 
while  Germany  has  ninety  species,  Britain 
has  forty,  and  Ireland  only  twenty-two.  The 
reptiles  and  amphibia  of  Germany  number 
twenty-two,  those  of  Britain  thirteen,  and 
those  of  Ireland  four.  Again,  even  among 
the  winged  tribes,  where  the  capacity  for  dis- 
persal is  so  much  greater,  Britain  possesses 
twelve  species  of  bats,  while  Ireland  has  no 
more  than  seven,  and  130  land  birds  to  no 
in  Ireland.  The  same  discrepancy  is  trace- 
able in  the  flora,  for  while  the  total  number 
of  species  of  flowering  plants  and  ferns  found 
in  B.itain  amounts  to  1,425,  those  of  Ireland 
number  970 — about  two  thirds  of  the  British 
flora.  Such  facts  as  these  are  not  explicable 
by  any  difference  of  climate  rendering  Ire- 
land less  fit  for  the  reception  of  more  varied 
vegetation  and  animal  life,  for  the  climate  of 
Ireland  is  really  more  equable  and  genial  than 
that  of  the  regions  lying  to  the  east  of  it. 
They  receive  a  natural  and  consistent  inter- 
pretation on  the  assumption  of  the  gradual 
separation  of  the  British  Islands  during  a  con- 
tinuous northwestward  migration  of  the 
present  flora  and  fauna  from  Central  Europe. 
The  last  neck  of  land  which  united  Britain 
to  the  mainland  was  probably  that  through 
which  the  Strait  of  Dover  now  runs.  Apart 
from  the  general  subsidence  of  the  whole 
North  Sea  area,  which  is  attested  by  sub- 
merged forests  on  both  sides,  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  perceive  how  greatly  the  widening  of 
the  channel  has  been  aided  by  waves  and 
ridal  currents.  The  cliffs  of  Kent  on  the  one 
side  and  of  the  Boulonnais  on  the  other, 
ceaselessly  battered  by  the  sea,  and  sapped 
by  the  trickle  of  percolating  springs,  are 
crumbling  before  our  very  eyes.  The  scour 
of  the  strong  tides  which  pour  alternately  up 
and  down  the  strait,  must  have  helped  also 
to  deepen  the  Channel.  And  yet,  in  spite  of 
the  subsidence  and  this  constant  erosion,  the 
depression  remains  so  shallow  that  its  deep- 
est parts  are  less  than  1 80  feet  below  the  sur- 
face. As  has  often  been  remarked,  if  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral  could  be  shifted  from  the 
heart  of  London  to  the  middle  of  the  strait 
more  than  half  of  it  would  rise  above  water. 


At  what  relative  time  in  the  human  occu- 
pation of  the  region  this  channel  was 
finally  opened  cannot  be  determined.  At  first 
the  strait  was  doubtless  much  narrower  than 
it  has  since  become,  so  that  it  would  not  oppose 
the  same  obstacle  to  free  intercourse  which  it 
n  w  does,  and  Neolithic  man  may  have 
readily  traversed  it  in  his  light  coracle  of 
skins.  Be  this  as  it  may,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  old  Basque  or  Iberian  stock 
had  for  many  ages  inhabited  Britain  before 
the  succeeding  wave  of  human  migration  ad- 
vanced to  overflow  and  efface  it.  The  next 
invaders — the  first  advance-guard  of  the  great 
Aryan  family — were  Celts,  whose  descend- 
ants still  form  a  considerable  part  of  the  pop- 
ulation of  the  British  Isles.  The  Celt  differed 
in  many  respects  from  the  small  swarthy 
Iberian  whom  he  supplanted.  He  was  tall, 
round-headed,  and  fair-skinned,  with  red  or 
brown  hair.  Endowed  with  greater  bodily 
strength  and  pugnacity,  he  drove  before  him 
the  older  smaller  race  of  short,  oblong-headed 
men,  gradually  extirpating  them,  or  leaving 
here  and  there,  in  less  attractive  portions  of 
the  country,  small  island-like  remnants  of 
them  which  insensibly  mingled  with  their 
conquerors,  though,  as  I  have  already  re- 
marked, traces  of  these  remnants  are  perhaps 
partially  recognizable  in  the  characteristic 
Iberian-like  lineaments  of  some  districts  of 
the  country  even  at  the  present  day. 

The  Celts,  as  we  now  find  them  in  Britain,, 
belong  to  two  distinct  divisions  of  the  race, 
the  Irish  or  Gaelic,  and  the  Welsh  or  Cymric. 
Some  difference  of  opinion  has  arisen  as  to- 
which  of  these  branches  appeared  in  the 
country  first.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  the 
question  is  discussed  on  the  evidence  of  geo- 
logical analogy,  the  unquestionable  priority 
should  be  assigned  to  the  Gaels.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  Celts  came  from  the 
east.  They  had  already  overspread  Gaul  and 
Belgium  before  they  invaded  Britain.  The 
tribe  which  is  found  on  the  most  northerly 
and  westerly  tracts  should  be  the  older,  hav- 
ing crossed,  on  its  way,  the  regions  lying  ta 
the  east,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  race 
occupying  the  eastern  tracts  should  be  of 
later  origin.  We  ought  to  judge  of  the 
spread  of  the  human  population  as  we  do  of 
that  of  the  flora  and  fauna.  Had  England 
been  already  occupied  by  the  Welsh,  Cymric 
or  British  branch,  it  is  inconceivable  that  the 
Irish  or  Gaelic  branch  could  have  marched 
through  the  territory  so  occupied,  and 
have  established  itself  in  Scotland  and 
Ireland.  The  Gaels  were,  no  doubt,  the 
first  to  arrive.  Finding  the  country  in- 
habited by  the  little  Neolithic  folk,  they 
dispossessed  them,  and  spread  by  degrees 
over  the  whole  of  the  islands.  At  a  later 
time  the  Cymry  arose.  We  are  not  here 
concerned  with  the  question  whether  these 
originated  by  a  gradual  bifurcation  In  the 
development  of  the  Celtic  race  after  its  set- 
lement  within  Britain,  or  came  as  a  later 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


47 


Celtic  wave  of  migration  from  the  continent. 
It  is  enough  to  notice  that  they  are  found  at 
the  beginning  of  the  historical  period  to  be 
in  possession  of  England,  Wales,  and  the 
south  of  Scotland  up  to  the  estuary  of  the 
Clyde.  It  is  improbable  that  the  Gaels,  who 
no  doubt  once  occupied  the  same  attractive 
region,  would  have  willingly  quitted  it  for 
the  more  inhospitable  moors  of  Scotland  and 
the  distant  bogs  and  fenlands  of  Ireland.  It 
is  much  more  likely  that  they  were  driven 
forcibly  out  of  it.  Possibly  the  traditions 
they  carried  with  them  of  the  greater  fertility 
of  England  may  have  instigated  the  numer- 
ous inroads  which  from  early  Roman  times 
downward  they  made  to  recover  the  lands  of 
their  forefathers.  Crossing  from  Ireland, 
they  repossessed  themselves  of  the  west  of 
Wales,  and  sweeping  down  from  the  Scottish 
Highlands,  they  repeatedly  burst  across  the 
Roman  wall,  carrying  pillage  and  rapine  far 
into  the  province  where  their  Clymric  cousins 
had  begun  to  learn  some  of  the  arts  and 
effeminacy  of  Roman  civilization. 

Looking  at  the  territory  occupied  by  the 
Cymry  at  the  time  of  their  greatest  extension, 
we  can  see  how  their  course  northward  was 
influenced  by  geological  structure.  As  they 
advanced  along  the  plains  which  lay  on  the 
west  side  cf  the  great  Pennine  chain  of  the 
center  and  north  of  England,  they  encoun- 
tered the  range  of  fells  which  connects  the 
mountain  group  of  Cumberland  and  West- 
moreland with  the  uplands  of  Yorkshire  and 
Durham.  This  would  probably  be  for  some 
time  a  barrier  to  their  progress.  But  after 
crossing  it  by  some  of  the  deep  valleys  by 
which  it  is  trenched,  they  would  find  them- 
selves in  the  wide  plains  of  the  Eden  and  the 
Solway.  Still  pushing  their  way  northward, 
and  driving  the  Gaels  before  them,  they  would 
naturally  follow  the  valley  of  the  Nith,  leav- 
ing on  the  left  hand  the  wild  mountainous 
region  of  Galloway,  or  "  country  of  the  Gael," 
to  which  the  conquered  tribe  retired,  and  on 
the  right  the  high  moorlands  about  the  head 
of  Clydesdale  and  Tweeddale.  Emerging  at 
last  upon  the  lowlands  of  Ayrshire  and  lower 
Clydesdale,  they  would  spread  over  them 
until  their  further  march  was  arrested  by  the 
great  line  of  the  Highland  mountains.  Into 
these  fastnesses,  stoutly  defended  by  the  Pict- 
i-h  Gaels,  they  seem  never  to  have  pene- 
trated. But  they  built,  as  their  northern 
outpost,  the  city  and  castle  of  Alcluyd,  where 
the  picturesque  rock  of  Dumbarton,  or  ' '  fort 
of  the  Britons,"  towers  above  the  Clyde. 

At  one  time,  therefore,  the  Cymry  extended 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Clyde  to  the  south  of 
England.  One  language — Welsh  and  its 
dialects — appears  to  have  been  spoken 
throughout  that  territory.  Hence  the  battles 
of  King  Arthur,  which,  from  the  evidence  of 
the  ancient  Welsh  poems,  appear  to  have  been 
fought,  not  in  the  southwest  of  England,  as 
is  usually  supposed,  but  in  the  middle  of 
Scotland,  against  the  fierce  Gwyddyl  Ffichti 


or  Picts  of  the  north  and  the  heathen  swarm- 
ing from  beyond  the  sea,  were  sung  all  the 
way  down  into  Wales  and  Devon,  and  across 
the  Channel  among  the  vales  of  Brittany, 
whence,  becoming  with  every  generation, 
more  mystical  and  marvelous,  they  grew  into 
favorite  themes  of  the  romantic  poetry  of 
Europe. 

The  Roman  occupation  affected  chiefly  the 
lowlands  of  England  and  Scotland  where  the 
more  recent  geological  formations  extend  in 
broad  plains  or  plateaux.  Numerous  towns 
were  built  there,  between  which  splendid 
roads  extended  across  the  country.  The 
British  inhabitants  of  these  lowlands  were 
not  extirpated,  but  continued  to  live  on  the 
lands  which  they  had  tilled  of  old,  more  or 
less  affected  by  the  Roman  civilization  with 
which,  for  some  four  centuries  or  more,  they 
were  brought  in  contact.  But  the  regions 
occupied  by  the  more  ancient  rocks,  rising 
into  rugged  forest-covered  mountains,  offered 
an  effective  barrier  to  the  march  of  the  Roman 
legions,  and  afforded  a  shelter  within  which 
the  natives  could  preserve  their  ancient  man- 
ners and  language  with  but  little  change. 
The  Romans  occupied  the  broad  central  low- 
land region  of  Scotland  which  is  formed  by 
the  Old  Red  Sandstone  and  Carboniferous 
strata,  extending  up  to  the  base  of  the  High- 
lands. But  though  they  inflicted  severe  de- 
feats upon  the  wild  barbarians  who  issued 
from  the  dark  glens,  and  though  they  seemed 
to  have  been  led  by  Severus  round  by  the 
Aberdeenshire  low  grounds  to  the  shores  of 
the  Moray  Firth,  and  to  have  returned  through 
the  heart  of  the  Highlands,  they  were  never 
able  permanently  to  bring  any  part  of  the 
mountainous  area  of  crystalline  rocks  under 
their  rule. 

The  same  geological  influences  which 
guarded  the  progress  of  the  Roman  armies 
may  be  traced  in  the  subsequent  Teutonic 
invasions  of  Angles,  Saxons,  Jutes,  and  Nor- 
wegians. Arriving  from  the  east  and  north- 
east, these  hordes  found  level  lowlands  open 
to  their  attack.  Where  no  inpenetrable 
thicket,  forest,  fenland,  or  mountainous  bar- 
rier impeded  their  advance,  they  rapidly 
pushed  inland,  utterly  extirpating  the  British 
population  and  driving  its  remnants  steadily 
westward.  By  the  end  of  the  sixth  century 
the  Britons  had  disappeared  from  the  eastern 
half  of  the  island  south  of  the  Firth  of  Forth. 
Their  frontier,  everywhere  obstinately  de- 
fended, was  very  unequal  in  its  capabilities 
of  defence.  In  the  north,  where  they  had 
been  driven  across  bare  moors  and  bleak  up- 
lands, they  found  these  inhospitable  tracts  for 
a  time  a  barrier  to  the  further  advance  of  the 
enemy  ;  but  where  they  stood  face  to  face 
with  their  foe  in  the  plains  they  could  not 
permanently  resist  his  advance.  This  differ- 
ence in  physical  contour  and  geological  struc- 
ture led  to  the  final  disruption  of  the  Cymric 
tract  of  country  by  the  two  most  memorable 
battles  in  the  early  history  of  England. 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


Between  the  Britons  of  South  Wales  and 
those  of  Devon  and  Cornwall  lay  the  rich 
•vale  of  the  Severn.  Across  this  plain  there 
once  spread  in  ancient  geological  times  a 
thick  sheet  of  Jurassic  strata  of  which  the 
"bold  escarpment  of  the  Cotswold  Hills  forms 
a  remnant.  The  valley  has  been  in  the  course 
of  ages  hollowed  out  of  these  rocks,  the  depth 
of  which  is  only  partly  represented  by  the 
height  of  the  Cotswold  plateau.  The  Ro- 
mans had  found  their  way  into  this  fertile 
plain,  and  attracted  by  the  hot  springs  which 
still  rise  there,  had  built  the  venerable  city  of 
Bath  and  other  towns.  One  hundred  and 
seven  years  after  the  Romans  quitted  Britain, 
the  West  Saxons,  who  had  gradually  pushed 
their  way  westward  up  the  valley  of  the 
Thames,  found  themselves  on  the  edge  of  the 
Cotswod  plateau,  looking  down  upon  the 
rich  and  long  settled  plains  of  the  Severn. 
Descending  from  these  heights,  they  fought 
in  577  the  decisive  battle  of  Deorham,  which 
had  the  effect  of  giving  them  possession  of 
the  Severn  valley,  and  thus  of  isolating  the 
Britons  of  Devon  and  Cornwall  from  the  rest 
of  their  kinsmen.  Driven  thus  into  the  south- 
west corner  of  England  upon  ancient  Devo- 
nian and  granitic  rocks,  poorer  in  soil,  but 
rich  in  wealth  of  tin  and  copper,  these 
Britons  maintained  their  individuality  for 
many  centuries.  Though  they  have  now 
gradually  been  fused  into  the  surrounding 
English-speaking  people,  it  was  only  about 
the  middle  of  last  century  that  they  ceased  to 
use  their  ancient  Celtic  tongue. 

Still  more  important  was  the  advance  of  the 
Angles  on  the  north  side  of  Wales.  The 
older  Palaeozoic  rocks  of  the  principality  form 
a  mass  cf  high  grounds  which,  flanked  with 
a  belt  of  coal-bearing  strata,  descend  into  the 
plains  of  Cheshire.  Younger  formations  of 
soft  red  Triassic  marl  and  sandstone  stretch 
northward  to  the  base  of  the  Carboniferous 
and  Silurian  hills  of  north  Lancashire.  This 
strip  of  level  and  fertile  ground,  bounded  on 
the  eastern  side  by  high  desert  moors  and  im- 
penetrable forests',  connected  the  Britons  of 
Wales  with  those  of  the  Cumbrian  uplands, 
and,  for  nearly  200  years  after  the  Romans 
had  left  Britain,  was  subject  to  no  foreign  in- 
vasion, save  perhaps  occasional  piratical  de- 
scents from  the  Irish  coasts.  But  at  last,  in 
the  year  607,  the  Angle:, who  had  overspread 
the  whole  region  from  the  Firth  of  Forth  to 
the  south  of  Suffolk,  crossed  the  fastnesses 
of  the  Pennine  Chain  and  burst  upon  the  in- 
habitants of  the  plains  of  the  Dee.  A  great 
battle  was  fought  at  Chester  in  which  the 
Britons  were  routed.  The  Angles  obtained 
permanent  possession  of  these  lowlands,  and 
thus  the  Welsh  were  effectually  cut  off  from 
the  Britons  of  Cumbria  and  Strathclyde.  The 
latter  have  gradually  mingled  with  their  Teu- 
tonic neighbors,  though  the  names  of  many  a 
hili  and  river  bear  witness  to  their  former 
sway.  The  Welsh,  on  the  other  hand, 
driven  in:o  their  hilly  and  mountainous  tracts 


of  ancient  Palaeozoic  rocks,  have  maintained 
their  separate  language  and  customs  down  to 
the  present  day. 

Turning  now  to  the  conflict  between  the 
Celtic  and  Teutonic  races  in  Scotland,  we 
notice  in  how  marked  a  manner  it  was  di- 
rected by  the  geological  structure  of  the  coun- 
try. The  level  Secondary  formations  which, 
underlying  the  plains,  form  so  notable  a  fea- 
ture in  the  scenery  of  England,  are  almost 
wholly  absent  from  Scotland.  The  Palaeozoic 
rocks  of  the  latter  kingdom  have  been  so 
crumpled  and  broken,  so  invaded  by  intru- 
sions of  igneous  matter  from  below,  and  over 
two-thirds  of  the  country  rendered  so  crys- 
talline and  massive,  that  they  stand  up  for 
the  most  part  as  high  table-lands,  deeply 
trtnched  by  narrow  valleys.  Only  along  the 
central  counties  between  the  base  of  the 
Highlands  on  the  one  side  and  the  southern 
uplands  on  the  other,  where  younger  Palaeo- 
zoic formations  occur,  are  there  any  consid- 
erable tracts  of  lowland,  and  even  these  are 
everywhere  interrupted  by  protrusions  of 
igneous  rock  forming  minor  groups  of  hills 
or  isolated  crags  like  those  that  form  so  char- 
acteristic a  feature  in  the  landscapes  around 
Edinburgh.  In  old  times  dense  forests  and 
impenetrable  morasses  covered  much  of  the 
land.  A  country  fashioned  and  clothed  in 
this  manner  is  much  more  suitable  for  de- 
fense than  for  attack.  The  high  mountain- 
ous interior  of  the  north,  composed  of  the 
more  ancient  crystalline  rocks,  which  had 
sheltered  the  Caledonian  tribes  from  the  well- 
ordered  advance  of  the  Roman  legions,  now 
equally  protected  them  from  the  sudden 
swoop  of  Saxon  and  Scandinavian  sea-pirates. 
Neither  Roman  nor  Teuton  every  made  any 
lasting  conquest  of  that  territory.  It  has  re- 
mained in  the  hands  of  its  Celtic  conquerors 
till  the  present  time. 

But  the  case  has  been  otherwise  with  the 
tracts  where  the  younger  Palaeozoic  deposits 
spread  out  from  the  base  of  the  Highland 
mountains.  These  strata  have  not  partaken 
of  the  violent  corrugations  and  marked  crys- 
tallization to  which  the  older  rocks  have  been 
subjected.  On  the  contrary,  they  extend  in 
gentle  undulations  forming  level  plains  and 
strips  of  lowland  between  the  foot  of  the 
more  ancient  hills  and  the  margin  of  the  sea. 
It  was  on  these  platforms  of  undisturbed 
strata  that  invaders  could  most  successfully 
establish  themselves.  So  dominant  has  been 
this  geological  influence  that  the  line  of 
boundary  between  the  crystalline  rocks  and 
the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  from  the  north  of 
Caithness  to  the  coast  of  Kincardineshire, 
was  almost  precisely  that  of  the  frontier  es- 
tablished between  the  old  Celtic  natives  and 
the  later  hordes  of  Danes  ;:nd  Northmen.  To 
this  day,  in  spite  of  the  inevitable  mingling 
of  the  races,  it  still  serves  to  define  the  re- 
spective areas  of  the  Gaelic-speaking  and 
English-speaking  populations.  On  the  Old 
Red  Sandstone  we  hear  only  English,  often 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


49 


•with  a  northern  accent,  and  even  with  not  a 
few  northern  words  that  seem  to  remind  us 
of  the  Norse  blood  which  flows  in  the  veins 
of  these  hardy  fish-folk  and  farmers.  We 
meet  with  groups  of  villages  and  towns  ;  the 
houses,  though  often  poor  and  dirty,  are  for 
the  most  part  solidly  built  of  hewn  stone  and 
mortar,  with  well-made  roofs  of  thatch,  slate, 
or  flagstone.  The  fuel  in  ordinary  use  is  coal 
brought  by  sea  from  the  south .  But  no  sooner 
do  we  penetrate  within  the  area  of  the 
crystalline  rocks  than  all  appears  changed. 
Gaelic  is  now  the  vernacular  tongue.  There 
are  few  or  no  villages.  The  houses,  built  of 
boulders  gathered  from  the  soil  and  held  to- 
gether with  mere  clay  or  earth,  are  covered 
with  frail  roofs  of  ferns,  straw,  or  heather, 
kept  down  by  stone- weigh  ted  ropes  of  the 
same  materials.  Fireplaces  and  chimneys 
are  not  always  present,  and  the  pungent  blue 
smoke  from  fires  of  peat  or  turf  finds  its  way 
out  by  door  and  window,  or  beneath  the  be- 
grimed rafters.  The  geological  contrast  of 
structure  and  scenery  which  allowed  the 
Teutonic  invaders  to  drive  the  older  Celtic 
people  from  the  coast-line,  but  prevented 
them  from  advancing  inland,  has  sufficed 
during  all  the  subsequent  centuries  to  keep 
the  two  races  apart 

On  the  northwestern  coasts  of  the  island 
there  are  none  of  the  fringes  of  more  recent 
formations  which  have  had  so  marked  an  in- 
fluence on  the  east  side.  From  the  north  of 
Sutherland  to  the  headlands  of  Argyle  the 
more  ancient  rocks  of  the  country  rise  steep 
and  rugged  out  of  the  sea,  projecting  in  long 
bare  promonotories,  forever  washed  by  the 
restless  surge  of  the  Atlantic.  Here  and 
there  the  coast-line  sinks  into  a  sheltered  bay, 
or  is  interrupted  by  some  long  winding  inlet 
that  admits  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  ocean 
tides  far  into  the  heart  of  the  mountains. 
Only  in  such  depressions  could  a  seafaring 
people  find  safe  harbors  and  fix  their  settle- 
ments. When  the  Norsemen  sailed  round 
the  northwest  of  Scotland  they  found  there  the 
counterpart  of  their  own  native  country — the 
same  type  of  bare,  rocky,  island-fringed  coast- 
line sweeping  up  into  bleak  mountains,  wind- 
ing into  long  sea-lochs  or  fjords  beneath  the 
shadow  of  somber  pine-forests,  and  to  the 
west  the  familiar  sweep  of  the  same  wide 
blue  ocean.  So  striking  even  now  is  this  re- 
semblance, that  the  Scot  who  for  the  first 
time  sails  along  the  western  seaboard  of 
Norway  can  hardly  realize  that  he  is  not 
skirting  the  coast-line  of  Inverness,  Ross,  or 
Sutherland.  Such  a  form  of  coast  forbade 
easy  communication  by  land  between  valley 
and  valley.  Detached  settlements  arose  in 
the  more  sheltered  bays,  where  glens,  open- 
ing inland,  afforded  ground  for  tillage  and 
pasture.  But  the  intercourse  between  them 
would  be  almost  wholly  by  boat,  for  there 
could  be  no  continuous  line  of  farms,  villages, 
and  roads  like  those  for  which  the  Old  Red 
Sandstone  selvages  afforded  such  facilities  on 


the  eastern  coast.  Hence,  though  the  Norse- 
men possessed  themselves  of  every  available 
bay  and  inlet,  driving  the  Celts  into  the  more 
barren  interior,  the  natural  contours  made  it 
impossible  that  their  hold  of  the  ground 
should  be  so  firm  as  that  of  their  kinsmen  in 
the  east.  When  that  hold  began  to  -elax, 
the  Gaelic  natives  of  the  glens  came  down 
once  more  to  the  sea,  and  all  obvious  trace  of 
the  Norse  occupation  eventually  disappeared, 
save  in  the  names  given  by  the  sea  rovers  to 
the  islands,  promonotories,  and  inlets — the 
"ays,"  "nishes,"or  "nesses,"  and  "fords," 
or  fjords — which,  having  been  adopted  by 
the  Celtic  natives,  show  that  there  must  have 
been  some  communication  and  probable  in- 
termarriage between  the  races.  Among  the 
outer  islands  the  effects  of  the  Norwegian 
occupation  were  naturally  more  enduring, 
though  even  there  the  Celtic  race  has  long 
recovered  its  ground.  Only  in  the  Orkney 
and  Shetland  group  have  the  Vikings  left 
upon  the  physical  frame  and  language  of  the 
people  the  strong  impress  of  their  former 
presence.  To  this  day  a  Shetlander  speaks 
of  going  to  Scotland,  meaning  the  mainland, 
much  as  a  Lowland  Scot  might  talk  of  visit- 
ing England,  or  an  Englishman  of  crossing 
to  Ireland. 

But  besides  governing  in  no  small  degree 
the  distribution  of  races  in  Britain,  the 
geological  structure  of  the  country  has  prob- 
ably not  been  without  its  influence  upon 
the  temperament  of  the  people.  Let  us  take 
the  case  of  the  Celts,  originally  one  great 
race,  with  no  doubt  the  same  average  type 
of  mental  and  moral  disposition,  as  they  un- 
questionably possessed  the  same  general 
build  of  body  and  cast  of  features.  Proba- 
bl  •  nowhere  within  our  region  have  they  re- 
mained unmixed  with  a  foreign  element, 
which  together,  with  the  varying  political 
conditions  under  which  they  have  lived,  must 
have  distinctly  affected  their  character.  But 
after  every  allowance  has  been  made  for 
these  several  influences,  it  seems  to  me  that 
there  are  residual  differences  which  cannot 
be  explained  except  by  the  effects  of  environ- 
ment. The  Celt  of  Ireland  and  of  the  Scot- 
tish Highlands  was  originally  the  same  being; 
he  crossed  freely  from  country  to  country  ; 
his  language,  manners  and  customs,  arts,  re- 
ligion, were  the  same  on  both  sides  of  the 
channel,  yet  no  two  natives  of  the  British 
Islands  are  now  marked  by  more  character- 
istic differences.  The  Irishman  seems  to  have 
changed  less  than  the  Highlander;  he  has 
retained  the  light-hearted  gayety,  wit,  impul- 
siveness and  excitability,  together  with  that 
want  of  dogged  resolution  and  that  indiffer- 
ence to  the  stern  necessities  of  duty  which 
we  regard  as  pre-eminently  typical  of  the 
Celtic  temperament  The  Highlander,  on 
the  other  hand,  cannot  be  called  either  merry 
or  witty  ;  he  is  rather  of  a  self-restrained, 
reserved,  unexpansive,  and  even  perhaps 
somewhat  sullen  disposition.  HIB  music 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


partakes  of  the  melancholy  cadence  of  the 
winds  that  sigh  through  his  lonely  glens  ;  his 
religion,  too,  one  of  the  strongest  and  noblest 
features  of  his  character,  retains  still  much 
of  the  gloomy  tone  of  a  bygone  time.  Yet 
he  is  courteous,  dutiful,  determinedly  per- 
severing, unflinching  as  a  foe,  unwearied  as  a 
friend,  fitted  alike  to  follow  with  soldier-like 
obedience,  and  to  lead  with  courage,  skill, 
and  energy — a  man  who  has  done  much  in 
every  climate  to  sustain  and  expand  the  re- 
putation of  the  British  Empire. 

Now,  what  has  led  to  so  decided  a  con- 
trast ?  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  one 
fundamental  cause  is  to  be  traced  to  the  great 
difference  between  the  geological  structure 
and  consequent  scenery  of  Ireland  and  the 
Highlands.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  Ire- 
land is  occupied  by  the  Carboniferous  lime- 
stone, which,  in  gently  undulating  sheets, 
spreads  out  as  a  vast  plain.  Round  the  mar- 
gin of  this  plain  the  older  formations  rise  as 
a  broken  ring  of  high  ground,  while  here  and 
there  from  the  surface  of  the  plain  itself  they 
tpwer  into  isolated  hills  or  hilly  groups  ;  but 
there  is  no  extensive  area  of  mountains.  The 
soil  is  generally  sufficiently  fertile,  the  climate 
soft,  and  the  limestone  plains  are  carpeted 
with  that  rich  verdant  pasture  which  has  sug- 
gested the  name  of  the  Emerald  Isle.  In 
such  a  region,  so  long  as  the  people  are  left 
free  from  foreign  interference,  there  can  be 
but  little  to  mar  the  gay,  careless,  childlike 
temperament  of  the  Celtic  nature.  If  the 
country  yields  no  vast  wealth,  it  yet  can  fur- 
nish with  but  little  labor  all  the  necessaries 
of  life.  The  Irishman  is  naturally  attached 
to  his  holding.  His  fathers  for  generations 
past  have  cultivated  the  same  little  plots. 
He  sees  no  reason  why  he  should  try  to  be  bet- 
ter than  they,  and  he  resents,  as  an  injury 
never  to  be  forgiven,  the  attempt  to  remove 
him  to  where  he  may  elsewhere  improve  his 
fortunes.  The  highlander,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  no  such  broad  fertile  plains  around  him. 
Placed  in  a  glen,  separated  from  his  neigh- 
bors in  the  next  glens  by  high  ranges  of 
rugged  hills,  he  finds  a  soil  scant  ard  stony, 
a  climate  wet,  cold,  and  uncertain.  He  has 
to  fight  with  the  elements  a  never-ending 
battle,  wherein  he  is  often  the  loser.  The 
dark  mountains  that  frown  above  him  gather 
around  their  summits  the  cloudy  screen  which 
keeps  the  sun  from  ripening  his  miserable 
patch  of  corn,  or  rots  it  with  perpetual  rains 
after  it  has  been  painfully  cut.  He  stands 
among  the  mountains  face  to  face  with  Na- 
ture in  her  wilder  moods.  Storm  and  tem- 
pest, mist-wreath  and  whirlwind,  the  roar  of 
waterfalls,  the  rush  of  swollen  streams,  the 
crash  of  loosened  landslips,  which  he  may 
seem  hardly  to  notice,  do  not  pass  without 
bringing,  unconsciously  perhaps,  to  his 
imagination,  their  ministry  of  terror.  Hence 
the  playful  mirthfulness  and  light-hearted 
ease  of  the  Celtic  temperament  have  in  his 
case  been  curdled  into  a  stubbornness  which 


may  be  stolid  obstinacy  or  undaunted  perse- 
verance, according  to  the  circumstances  which 
develop  it.  Like  his  own  granitic  hills,  he 
has  grown  hard  and  enduring,  not  without 
a  tinge  of  melancholy  suggestive  of  the  sad- 
ness that  lingers  among  his  wind-swept  glens, 
and  that  hangs  about  the  slopes  of  birk  round 
the  quiet  waters  of  his  lonely  lakes.  The 
difference  between  Irishman  and  Scot  thus 
somewhat  resembles,  though  on  a  minor 
scale,  that  between  the  Celt  of  lowland  France 
and  the  Celt  of  the  Swiss  Alps,  and  the  cause 
of  the  difference  is  doubtless  traceable,  in  great 
measure,  to  a  similar  kind  of  contrast  in  their' 
respective  surroundings. 

If  now  we  turn  to  the  influences  which 
have  been  at  work  in  the  distribution  of  the 
population  of  the  country  and  the  develop- 
ment of  the  national  industries,  we  find  them 
in  large  degree  of  a  geological  kind. 

In  the  first  place,  the  feral  ground,  or  ter- 
ritory left  in  a  state  of  nature  and  given  up 
togame,  lies  mostly  upon  rocks  which,  pro- 
truding almost  every where  to  the  surface  and 
only  scantily  and  sparsely  covered  with  a  poor 
soil,  are  naturally  incapable  of  cultivation. 
The  crystalline  formations  of  the  Scottish 
Highlands  may  be  taken  as  an  example  of 
this  kind  of  territory.  The  grouse-moors 
and  deer-forests  of  that  region  exist  there 
not  merely  because  the  proprietors  of  the  land 
have  so  willed  it,  but  because  over  hundreds 
of  square  miles  the  ground  itself  could  be 
turned  to  no  better  use,  for  it  can  neither  be 
tilled  nor  pastured.  Much  patriotic  nonsense 
has  been  written  about  the  enormity  of  re- 
fining so  much  land  as  game  preserves.  But 
n  this,  as  in  so  many  other  matters,  man 
must  be  content  to  be  the  servant  of  Nature. 
He  cannot  plant  crops  where  she  has  appoint- 
ed that  they  shall  never  grow;  nor  can  he  pas- 
;ure  sheep  where  she  has  decreed  that  only 
the  fox,  the  wild-cat,  and  the  eagle  shall  find 
a  home. 

In  the  second  place,  the  true  pasture  lands 
— that  is,  the  tracts  which  are  too  high  or 
sterile  for  cultivation,  but  which  are  not  too 
rocky  to  refuse  to  yield,  when  their  heathy 
covering  is  burnt  off,  a  sweet  grassy  herbage, 
excellent  for  sheep  and  cattle — lie  mainly  on 
elevated  areas  of  non-crystalline  Palaeozoic 
rocks.  The  long  range  of  pastoral  uplands 
in  the  Sou'.h  of  Scotland,  and  the  fells  of 
Cumberland,  Northumberland,and  Yorkshire, 
are  good  examples.  These  lonely  wilds  might 
be  grouped  into  districts  each  marked  off  by 
certain  distinctive  types  of  geological 
structure,  and  consequently  of  scenery.  And 
it  might,  for  aught  I  know,  be  possible  to 
show  that  these  distinctions  have  not  been 
without  their  influence  upon  the  generations 
of  shepherds  who  have  spent  their  solitary 
lives  among  them;  that  in  character,  legends, 
superstitions,  song,  the  peasants  of  Lammer- 
muir  might  be  distinguished  from  those  of 
Liddesdale,  and  both  from  those  of  Cumber- 
lanJ  and  Yorkshire— the  distinction,  subtle 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


61 


perhaps  and  hardly  definable,  pointing  more 
or  less  clearly  to  the  contrasts  between  their 
respective  surroundings. 

In  the  third  place,  the  sites  of  towns  and 
villages  may  often  be  traced  to  a  guiding 
geological  influence.  Going  back  to  feudal 
times,  we  at  once  observe  to  what  a  large 
extent  the  positions  of  the  castles  of  the 
nobles  were  determined  by  the  form  of  the 
ground,  and  notably  by  the  prominence  of 
some  crag  which,  rising  well  above  the  rest 
of  the  country,  commanded  a  wide  view  and 
was  capable  of  defense.  Across  the  low- 
lands of  Scotland  such  crags  are  abundantly 
scattered.  They  consist  for  the  most  part  of 
hard  projections  of  igneous  rock,  from  which 
the  softer  sandstones  and  shales,  that  once 
surrounded  and  covered  them,  have  been 
worn  away.  Many  of  them  are  crowned 
with  medieval  fortresses,  some  of  which 
stand  out  among  the  most  famous  spots  in 
the  history  of  the  country.  Dumbarton, 
Stirling,  Blackness,  Edinburgh,  Tantallon, 
Dunbar,  the  Bass,  are  familiar  names  in  the 
stormy  annals  of  Scotland.  A  strong  castle 
naturally  gathered  around  its  walls  the 
peasantry  of  the  neighborhood  for  protection 
against  the  common  foe,  and  thus  by  degrees 
the  original  collection  of  wooden  booths  or 
stone  huts  grew  into  a  village  or  even  into  a 
a  populous  town.  The  Scottish  metropolis 
undoubtedly  owes  its  existence  in  this  way 
to  the  bold  crag  of  basalt  on  which  its 
ancient  castle  stands. 

In  more  recent  times  the  development  of 
the  mining  industries  of  the  country  has 
powerfully  affected  both  the  growth  and  de- 
cay of  towns.  Comparing  in  this  respect 
the  maps  of  to-day  with  those  of  150  or  200 
years  ago,  we  cannot  but  be  struck  with  the 
remarkable  changes  that  have»  taken  place  in 
the  interval.  Some  places  which  were  then 
of  but  minor  importance  have  now  advanced 
to  the  first  rank,  while  others  that  were 
among  the  chief  towns  of  the  realm  have 
either  hardly  advanced  at  al!  or  have  posi- 
tively declined.  If  now  we  turn  to  a  geo- 
logical map,  we  find  that  in  almost  all 
cases  the  growth  has  taken  place  within  or 
near  to  some  important  mineral  field,  while 
the  decadence  occurs  in  tracts  where  there 
are  no  workable  minerals.  Look,  for  exam- 
ple, at  the  prodigious  increase  of  such  towns 
as  Glasgow,  Liverpool,  Manchester,  New- 
castle, Birmingham,  and  Middlesborough. 
Each  of  these  owes  its  advance  in  population 
and  wealth  to  its  position  in  the  midst  of,  or 
close  to,  fields  of  coal  and  iron.  Contrast, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  sleepy,  quiet,  unpro- 
gressive  content,  and  even  sometimes  un- 
mistakable decay,  of  not  a  few  county  towns 
in  our  agricultural  districts. 

Closely  connected  with  this  subject  is  the 
remarkable  transference  of  population  which 
for  the  last  generation  or  two  has  been  in 
such  rapid  progress  among  us.  The  large 
manufacturing  towns  are  increasing  at  the 


expense  of  the  rural  districts.  The  general 
distribution  of  the  population  is  changing, 
and  the  change  is  obviously  underlaid  by  a 
geological  cause.  People  are  drawn  to  the 
districts  where  they  can  obtain  most  employ- 
ment and  best  pay  ;  and  these  districts  are 
necessarily  those  where  coal  and  iron  can  be 
obtained,  without  which  no  branch  of  our 
manufacturing  industry  could  at  present  exist. 

In  the  fourth  place  the  style  of  architecture 
in  different  districts  is  largely  dependent 
upon  the  character  of  their  geology.  The 
mere  presence  or  absence  of  building-stone 
creates  at  once  a  fundamental  distinction. 
Hence  the  contrast  between  the  brickwork  of 
England,  where  building-stone  is  less  com- 
mon, and  the  stonework  of  Scotland,  where 
stone  abounds.  But  even  as  we  move 
from  one  part  of  a  stone-using  region  to  an- 
other, marked  varieties  of  style  may  be  ob- 
served, according  to  local  geological  develop- 
ment. The  massive  yellow  limestone  blocks 
of  Bath  or  Portland,  the  thin  blue  flags  of  the 
Lake  district,  the  thick  courses  of  deep  red 
freestone  in  Dumfriesshire,  the  bands  of  fine, 
easily-dressed  white  sandstone  of  Edinburgh, 
have  all  produced  certain  differences  of  style 
and  treatment.  To  a  geological  eye  that 
passes  rapidly  through  a  territory,  this  char- 
acter of  its  buildings  is  often  suggestive  of 
its  geology. 

In  the  fifth  and  last  place,  the  dominant 
influence  of  the  geology  of  a  country  upon  its 
human  progress  is  nowhere  more  marvellously 
exhibited  than  in  the  growth  of  British  com-  . 
merce.  The  internal  trade  of  this  country 
may  be  spoken  of  as  its  life-blood,  pulsating 
unceasingly  along  a  network  of  railways. 
This  vast  organism  possesses  not  one  but 
many  hearts,  from  each  of  which  a  vigorous 
circulation  proceeds.  Each  of  these  hearts 
or  nerve  centers  is  situated  on  or  near  a 
mineral  region,  whence  its  nourishment 
comes.  The  history  of  the  development  of 
our  system  of  railways,  our  steam  machinery, 
our  manufactures,  is  unintelligible  except 
when  taken  together  with  the  opening  up  of 
our  resources  in  coal  and  iron. 

The  growth  of  the  foreign  commerce  of 
the  country  enforces  the  same  lesson.  Even, 
however,  before  the  days  of  steam  naviga- 
tion, her  geological  structure  gave  England 
a  distinct  advantage  over  her  neighbors  on 
the  Continent.  Owing  to  the  denudation 
that  has  hollowed  out  the  surface  of  th» 
country,  and  the  subsidence  that  has  de- 
pressed the  shoreward  tracts  beneath  the  sea, 
the  coast-line  of  Britain  abounds  in  admirable 
natural  harbors,  which  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  Channel  and  North  Sea  are  hardly  to 
be  found.  There  can  be  no  question  that  in 
the  infancy  of  navigation  this  gave  a  superi- 
ority for  which  hardly  anything  else  could 
compensate.  We  boast  that  it  is  our  insular 
position  and  our  English  blood  that  have 
Tiade  us  sailors.  Let  us  remember  that,  in 
pile  of  their  less  favorable  position,  our 


GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


52 


neighbors  on  the  opposite  shores  of  the  Con- 
tinent have  become  excellent  sailors  too,  and 
that  If  we  have  been  able  to  lead  the  van  in 
international  commerce  it  has  been  largely 
due  to  the  abundant,  safe,  and  commodious 
inlets  in  our  coast-line  which  have  sheltered 
our  marine. 
Of  the  foreign  trade  of  the  country  it  is 


not  needful  to  speak.  Its  rapid  growth  dur- 
ing the  present  century  is  distinctly  traceable 
to  the  introduction  of  steam  navigation,  and 
therefore  directly  to  the  development  of  those 
mineral  resources  which  form  so  marked  an 
element  in  the  fortunate  geological  construc- 
tion of  the  British  Islands, 


CONTENTS 


I.    A  FRAGMENT  or  PRIMEVAL  EUROPI 
II.    I*  WYOMING 


III.  THB  GEYSERS  OF  THB  YELLOWSTONE       ....„.......!• 

IV.  THE  LAVA  FIELDS  OF  NORTHWESTERN  EUROPE •       ....        10 

V.    THE  SCOTTISH  SCHOOL  OF  GEOLOGY ....       as 

VI.    GEOGRAPHICAL  EVOLUTION 33 

VII.  THE  GEOLOGICAL  INFLUENCES  WHICH  HAVE  AFFECTED  THE  COVME  or  BRITISH  HMTOBT    .       .       44 


THE 

Hunjboldt  Library  of  Science 

is  the  only  publication  of  its  kind, —  the  only  one  containing  popular 
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stand  forever  in  the  history  of  Mind.  Here,  in  truth,  is  "  strong 
meat  for  them  that  are  of  full  age." 

In  this  series  are  well  represented  the  writings  of 

DARWIN,  HUXLEY,  SPENCER,  TYNDALL,  PROCTOR,  CLIFFORD, 

CLODD,  BAGEHOT,  BAIN,  BATES,  WALLACE,  TRENCH, 

ROMANES,  GRANT  ALLEN,  BALFOUR  STEWART, 

GEIKIE,  HINTON,  SULLY,  FLAMMARION, 

PICTON,  WILLIAMS,  WILSON, 

and  other  leaders  of  thought  in  our  tune.  As  well  might  one  be  a 
mummy  in  the  tomb  of  the  Pharaohs  as  pretend  to  live  the  life  of  the 
nineteenth  century  without  communion  of  thought  with  these  its 
Master  Minds. 

Science  has  in  our  time  invaded  every  domain  of  thought  and  research, 
throwing  new  light  upon  the  problems  of 

PHILOSOPHY,  THEOLOGY,  MAN'S    HISTORY, 
GOVERNMENT,  SOCIETY,  MEDICINE. 

In  short,  producing  a  revolution  in  the  intellectual  and  moral  world. 
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THE    HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING    CO. 

28   Lafayette   Place,  New  York. 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


EVIDENCE    AS    TO    MAN'S    PLACE    IN    NATURE.-By  THOMAS  H. 

HUXLEY,  F.R.S.,  F.L.S. —  With  numerous  illustrations. 

CONTENTS. 

Chapter  I.— The  Natural  History  of  the  Manlike    I    Chapter  II.— The  Relations  of  Man  to  the  Lower 
Apes.  Animals. 

I    Chapter  III.— Some  Fossil  Remains  of  Man. 

EDUCATION:    INTELLECTUAL,   MORAL,  AND    PHYSICAL.- By 

HERBERT  SPENCER. 

CONTENTS. 

Chapter   I.— What  Knowledge  is  of  Most  Worth  1    \    Chapter  III.— Moral  Education. 
Chapter  II.— Intellectual  Education.  |    Chapter  IV.— Physical  Education. 

No.  6. 

TOWN  GEOLOGY.— By  the  Rev.  CHARLES  KINGSLET,  F.L.S.,  F.G.S.,  Canon  of 
Chester. 

CONTENTS. 

Chapter     I.— The  Soil  of  the  Field.  I    Chapter  IV.— The  Coal  in  the  Fire. 

Chapter  II.— The  Pebbles  in  the  Street.  Chapter    V.— The  Lime  in  the  Mortar. 

Chapter  III.— The  Stones  in  the  Wall.  |    Chapter  VI.— The  Slates  on  the  Roof. 

THE  CONSERVATION  OF  ENERGY.- By  BALFOUR  STEWART,  LL.D., 
F.R.S.,  Professor  of  Natural  Philosophy  at  the  Owens  College,  Manchester,  Eng. 
With  an  Appendix — "The  Correlation  of  Nervous  and  Mental  Forces,"  by  Prof. 
ALEXANDER  BAIN. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I.— What  is  Energy? 

Chapter  II. —  Mechanical  Energy  and  its  Change 

into  Heat. 
Chapter  III. — The  Forces  and  Energies  of  Nature : 

the  Law  of  Conservation. 
Chapter  IV.— Transmutations  of  Energy. 


Chapter  V.— Historical  Sketch:  the  Dissipation 

of  Energy. 
Chapter  VI.— The  Position  of  Life. 

APPENDIX.— The  Correlation  of   Nervous  and 
Mental  Forces. 


THE     STUDY    OF     LANGUAGES     BROUGHT     BACK    TO     ITS 

TRUE    PRINCIPLES.— By  C.  MARCEL,  Kut.  Leg.  Hon.,  author  of  "Language 
as  a  Means  of  Mental  Culture,"  &c. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I.— Subdivision  and  Order  of  Study. 
Chapter   II.— The  Art  of  Reading. 
Chapter  III.— The  Art  of  Hearing. 
Chapter  IV.— The  Art  Speaking. 


Chapter  V — The  Art  of  Writing. 
Chapter  VI.— On  Mental  Culture. 
Chapter  VII.— On  Routine. 


THE    DATA    OF    ETHICS.-By  HERBERT  SPENCER; 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  1.— Conduct  in  General. 

Chapter  II. —  The  Evolution  of  Conduct. 

Chapter  III.— Good  and  Bad  Conduct. 

Chapter  IV.— Ways  of  Judging  Conduct. 

Chapter  V.— The   Physical  View. 

Chapter  VI.— The   Biological  View. 

Chapter  VTI.— The  Psychological  View. 
Chapter  VIH.— The  Sociological  View. 


Chapter     IX.— Criticisms  and   Explanations. 
Chapter       X.— The  Relativity  of  Pains  and  Pleas- 
Chapter     XI.— Egoism  verms  Altruism,      [ures. 
Chapter    XII.—  Altruism  versus  Egoism. 
Chapter  XIII. —  Trial  and  Compromise. 
Chapter  XIV.— Conciliation. 

Chapter    XV.—  Absolute  Ethics  and  Relative  Eth- 
Chapter  XVI.—  The  Scope  of  Ethics.  lies. 


Published    semi-monthly.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR     SCIENCE. 


No.  10. 

THE  THEORY  OF  SOUND  IN  ITS  RELATION  TO  MUSIC.-By 

Professor  PIETRO  BLASERNA,  of  the  Royal  University  of  Rome.— With  numerous 
woodcuts. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  I.— Periodic  Movements:  Vibration.— 
Sonorous  Vibration.— Vibration  of  a  Bell.— Vibra- 
tion of  a  Tuning-fork.— Vibration  of  a  String.— Of 
Plates  and  Membranes.— Vibration  of  Air  in  a 
Sounding -pipe.  — Method  of  the  Monometric 
Flame. —  Conclusion. 

Chapter  II. — Transmission  of  Sound. — Propaga- 
tion in  Air.— In  Water  and  Other  Bodies.— Ve- 
locity of  Sound  in  Air.-  In  Water  and  Other  Bodies. 
Reflection  of  Sound.—  Echo. 

Chapter  III.— Characteristics  of  Sound,  and  Dif- 
ference between  Musical  Sound  and  Noise.— Loud- 
ness  of  Sound,  and  the  Various  Causes  on  which 
it  depends. —  Principle  of  the  Superposition  of 
Sounds. —  Sounding-boards  and  Resonators. 

Chapter  IV.— Measure  of  the  Number  of  Vibra- 
tions.—Pitch  of  Sounds :  Limit  of  Audible  Sounds, 
of  Musical  Sounds,  and  of  the  Human  Voice. — 
The  "Normal  Pitch."— Laws  of  the  Vibrations  of 
a  String,  and  of  Harmonics. 

Chapter  V.— Musical  Sounds.— Law  of  Simple 
Ratio. —  Unison:  interference. —  Beats:  their  ex- 
planation.—Resultant  Notes.— Octaves,  and  other 
Harmonics. — Consonant  Chords  and  their  limits. 
—  The  Major  fifth,  fourth,  sixth,  and  third:  the 
Minor  third  and  sixth.— The  Seventh  Harmonic. 


Chapter  VI.— Helmholtz's  Double  Siren.— Appli- 
cation of  the  Law  of  Simple  Ratio  to  three  or 
more  notes. —  Perfect  Major  and  Minor  Chords: 
their  nature. —  Their  inversion. 

Chapter  VII.— Discords.— The  Nature  of  Music 
and  Musical  Scales.  —  Ancient  Music.  — Greek 
Scale.— Scale  of  Pythagoras.— Its  decay.— Ambro- 
sian  and  Gregorian  Chants. —  Polyphonic  Music: 
Harmony. — The  Protestant  Reformation. —  Pales- 
trina.— Change  of  the  Musical  Scale.— The  Tonic 
or  Fundamental  Chord. —  The  Major  Scale. —  Mu- 
sical Intervals.— The  Minor  Scale.— Key  and  Trans- 
position.—  Sharps  and  Flats. —  The  Temperate 
Scale:  its  inaccuracy.— The  Desirability  of  aban- 
doning it. 

Chapter  VIII.— Quality  or  timbre  of  Musical 
Sounds.—  Forms  assumed  by  the  Vibrations.— 
Laws  of  Harmonics. —  Quality  or  timbre  of  Strings 
and  of  Instruments. —  General  Laws  of  Chords. — 
Noises  accompanying  Musical  Sounds. —  Quality 
or  timbre  of  Vocal  Musical  Sounds. 

Chapter  IX.— Difference  between  Science  and 
Art. —  Italian  and  German  Music. —  Separation  of 
the  two  Schools. — Influence  of  Paris. — Conclusion. 


Nos.  11  and  12. 


Double  number,  3O  cents. 


THE  NATURALIST  ON  THE  RIVER  AMAZONS.-A  Record  of 
Adventures,  Habits  of  Animals,  Sketches  of  Brazilian  and 
Indian  Life,  and  Aspects  of  Nature  under  the  Equator,  during 

eleven    years    of    travel.— B>'  HENRY  WALTER   BATES,  F.L.S.,  Assistant 
Secretary  of  the  Royal  Geogi'aphical   Society  of  England. 


CONTENTS. 
(In  part.) 


Chapter  I.  — Arrival  at  Para  — Aspect  of  the 
country — First  walk  in  the  suburbs  of  Para — Birds, 
lizards,  and  insects — Leaf-carrying  ant — Sketch  of 
the  climate,  history,  and  present  condition  of  Para. 

Chapter  H. — The  swampy  forest  of  Para — A  Por- 
tuguese landed  proprietor — Life  of  a  Naturalist 
under  the  Equator — The  dryer  virgin  forests — Re- 
tired creeks — Aborigines. 

Chapter  III.— The  Tocantins  River  and  Cameta 
—Sketch  of  the  River— Grove  of  fan-leaved  palms 
—Native  life  on  the  Tocantins. 

Chapter  V.—Caripi  and  the  Bay  of  Maraj6— 
Negro  observance  of  Christmas — A  German  family 
— Bats  — Ant-eaters  —  Humming-birds  —  Domestic 
life  of  the  inhabitants  —  Hunting  excursion  with 
Indians— White  ants. 

Chapter  VI.— The  Lower  Amazons  —  Modes  of 
traveling  on  the  Amazons — Historical  sketch  of  the 
early  explorations  of  the  river— First  sight  of  the 
great  river — Flat-topped  mountains. 

Chapter  VII.— Vilfe  Nova,  its  inhabitants.forest, 
and  animals— A  rustic  festival— River  Madeira— 
Mura  Indians— Yellow  Fever. 

Chapter  VIII.— Santarem— Manners  and  customs 


of  the  inhabitants— Sketches  of  Natural  History- 
palms,  wildfruit- trees,  mining- wasps,  mason- wasps, 
bees.and  sloths. 

Chapter  IX.— Voyage  up  the  Tapajos— Modes  of 
obtaining  fish— White  Cebus,and  habits  and  dispo- 
sitions ofCebi  monkeys — Adventure  with  anaconda 

—  Smoke-dried  monkey  —  Boa-constrictor  —  Hya- 
cinthine  macaw — Descent  of  river  to  Santarem. 

Chapter  X.— The  Upper  Amazons— Desolate  ap- 
pearance of  river  in  the  flood  season — Mental  con- 
dition of  Indians— Floating  pumice-stones  from 
the  Andes— Falling  banks— Ega  and  its  inhabitants 
— The  four  seasons  of  the  Upper  Amazons. 

Chapter  XI.— Excursions  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Ega — Character  and  customs  of  the  Passe  Indians 
—Hunting  rambles  with  natives  in  the  forest. 

Chapter  XII.— Animals  of  the  neighborhood  of 
Ega-Scarlet-faced  monkeys-  Owl  faced  night-apes 

—  Marmosets—  Bats—  Birds—  Insects—  Pendulous 
cocoons — Foraging  ants — Blind  ants. 

Chapter  XIII.— Excursions  beyond  Ega— Steam- 
boat traveling  on  the  Amazons — Various  tribes  of 
Indians— Descent  to  Para— Great  changes  at  ParA 
— Departure  for  England. 


»%  This  is  one  of  the  most  charming  books  of  travel  ever  written,  and  is  both  interesting  and  in- 
structive. It  is  a  graphic  description  of  "  a  country  of  perpetual  summer,— where  trees  yield  flower  and 
fruit  all  the  year  round,"— "a  region  where  the  animals  and  plants  have  been  fashioned  in  Nature's 
choicest  moulds." 


THE   HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING  CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 


THE    HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


ON  THE  PHYSICAL  BASIS  OF  LIFE.- With  Other  Essays,  viz., 
The  Scientific  Aspects  of  Positivism.— A  Piece  of  Chalk.— Geo- 
logical Contemporaneity.— A  Liberal  Education.— By  THOMAS  H. 

HUXLEY,  F.R.S.,  F.L.S. 

No.  22. 

SEEING  AND  THINKING.— By  WILLIAM  KINGDON  CLIFFORD,  F.K.S.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Applied  Mathematics  and  Mechanics  in  University  College,  London, 
and  sometime  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 


The  Eye  and  the  Brain. 
The  Eye  and  Seeing. 


CONTENTS. 


The  Brain  and  Thinking. 
Of  Boundaries  in  General. 


No.  23. 

SCIENTIFIC  SOPHISMS.  A  Review  of  Current  Theories  con- 
cerning Atoms,  Apes,  and  Men.— By  SAMUEL  WAINWRIGHT,  D.D., 
author  of  ''Christian  Certainty,"  "The  Modern  Avernus,"  &c. 


Chapter      I. — The  Right  of  Search. 

Chapter  II.—  Evolution. 

Chapter  HI.— "A  Puerile  Hypothesis." 

Chapter  IV.— "  Scientific  Levity." 

Chapter  V. —  A  House  of  Cards. 

Chapter  VI.— Sophisms. 

Chapter  VH.— Protoplasm. 


CONTBNTS. 

Chapter  Vill. —  The  Three  Beginnings. 
Chapter     IX.— The  Three  Barriers. 
Chapter       X.— Atoms. 
Chapter     XI.— Apes. 
Chapter   XH.— Men. 
Chapter  XTH.—Animi  MundL 


No.  24. 

POPULAR  SCIENTIFIC  LECTURES,  viz.,  On  the  Relation  of  Optics 
to  Painting.— On  the  Origin  of  the  Planetary  System.— On 
Thought  in  Medicine.— On  Academic  Freedom  in  German  Uni- 
versities.—By  H.  HELMHOLTZ,  Professor  of  Physics  in  the  University  of 
Berlin. 

No.  25. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  NATIONS.- In  two  parts.- On  Early  Civiliza- 
tions.—On  Ethnic  Affinities,  &C.— By  GEORGE  RAWLINSON,  M.A., 
Camden  Professor  of  Ancient  History,  Oxford. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  L—  EARLY  CIVILIZATIONS. 
Chapter        I. —  Introduction. 
Chapter       H. — On  the  Antiquity  of  Civilizatior 


Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 


in  Egypt. 
HI.—  On  the  Antiquity  of  Civilization 


at  Babylon. 
IV.— On   the   Date   and  Character  of 

Phoenician  Civilization. 
V.— On  the  Civilizations  of  Asia  Minor 
— Phrygia,  Lydia.  Lrcia,  Troas. 
Chapter     VI.— On  the  Civilizations  of  Central  Asia 
—  Assyria,  Media.  Persia,  India. 
Chapter  VTI. — On  the  Civilization  of  the  Etruscans 
Chapter  VIIL— On  the  Civilization  of  the  British 

Celts. 
Chapter      IX.— Results  of  the  Inquiry. 


PART  LT.— ETHNIC  AFFINITIES  IN  THE 
ANCIENT  WORLD. 

Chapter      I. —  The  Chief  Japhetic  Races. 
Chapter     IT.—  Subdivisions  of  the  Japhetic  Races, 

Gomer  and  Javan. 

Chapter  III.— The  Chief  Hamitic  Races. 
Chapter   IV.— Subdivisions  of  Cush. 
Chapter     V.— Subdivisions  of  Mizraim  and 

Canaan. 

Chapter  VI.— The  Semitic  Races. 
Chapter  VII.— On  the  Subdivisions  of  the  Semitic 


Published    semi-monthly.— $3   a  year.— Single    numbers.  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR    SCIENCE. 


THE    EVOLUTIONIST   AT    LARGE.-By  GRANT  ALLEN. 


CON 

Chapter        I.  —  Microscopic  Brains. 
Chapter      II—  A  Wayside  Berry. 
Chapter     III.—  In  Summer  Fields. 
Chapter     IV.—  A  Sprig  of  Water  Crowfoot. 
Chapter      V.—  Slugs  and  Snails. 
Chapter     VI.—  A  Study  of  Bones. 
<  hupter    VII.—  Blue   Mud. 
Chapter  VIII.—  Cuckoo-pint. 
Chapter     IX.—  Berries  and  Berries. 
Chapter       X.  —  Distant  Relations. 
Chapter     XI.—  Among  the  Heather. 

TENTS. 

Chapter      XII.—  Speckled  Trout. 
Chapter     XIII.  —  Dodder  and  Broomrape. 
Chapter     XIV.—  Dog's  Mercurv  and  Plantain. 
Chapter       XV.—  Butterfly  Psychology. 
Chapter     XVI.—  Butterfly  ^Esthetics. 
Chapter   XVII.—  The  Origin  of  Walnuts. 
Chapter  XVIII.—  A  Pretty  Land-shell. 
Chapter     XIX.—  Dogs  and  Masters. 
Chapter       XX—  Blackcock. 
Chapter     XXI.—  Bindweed. 
Chapter   XXII.-  On  Cornish  Cliffs. 

No.  27. 

THE     HISTORY    OF    LANDHOLDING     IN     ENGLAND.-By  JOSEPH 

FISHER,    F.E.H.S. 


I.—  The  Aborigines. 
II.—  The   Romans. 
III. —  The   Scandinavians. 


CONTENTS. 

IV— The  Normans. 
V.— The  Plantagenets. 
VI— The  Tudors. 


VII.— The  Stuarts. 
VIII. —  The  House  of   Hanover. 


FASHION  IN  DEFORMITY,  AS  ILLUSTRATED  IN  THE  CUS- 
TOMS OF  BARBAROUS  AND  CIVILIZED  RACES.-By  WILLIAM 

HENRY  FLOWER,  LL.D.,  F.E.S.,  F.E.C.S.,  P.Z.S.,  &c.,  Hunterian  Professor  of 
Comparative  Anatomy,  and  Conservator  of  the  Museum  of  the  Eoyal  College  of 
Surgeons  of  England. —  With  illustrations. 

TO   WHICH    IS    ADDED 

MANNERS    AND    FASH  ION. -By  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

No.  29. 

FACTS  AND  FICTIONS  OF  ZOOLOGY.- By  ANDREW  WILSON,  Ph.D., 
F.E.P.S.E.,  &c.,  Lecturer  on  Zoology  and  Comparative  Anatomy  in  the  Edin- 
burgh Medical  School;  Lecturer  on  Physiology,  Watt  Institution  and  School 
of  Arts,  Edinburgh,  &c.— With  numerous  illustrations. 


Zoological  Myths. 

The  Sea-serpents  of  Science. 

Some  Animal  Architects. 


CONTENTS. 

Parasites  and  their  Development. 
What  I  Saw  in  an  Ant's  Nest. 


No.  30.  and  No.  31.  [15  cents  each   number. 

ON    THE    STUDY    OF    WORDS.— By  EICHARD  CHENEVIX  TRENCH,  D.D., 
Archbishop  of   Dublin. 

CONTENTS. 

Lecture     I.— Introductory  Lecture.  Lecture      V.— On  the  Rise  of  New  Words. 

Lecture  II—  On  the  Poetry  in  Words.  Lecture    VI.— On  the  Distinction  of  Words. 

Lecture  HI—  On  the  Morality  in  Words.  Lecture  VII.— The  Schoolmaster's  Use  of  Words. 

Lecture  IV.— On  the  History  in  Words. 


HEREDITARY    TRAITS,    AND     OTHER     ESSAYS.-By  EICHARD  A. 

PROCTOR,  B.A.,  F.E.A.S.,  author  of  "The  Sun,"  "Other  Worlds  than  Ours," 
"Saturn,"  &c. 


I.— Hereditary  Traits. 
II. — Artificial   Somnambulism. 


CONTENTS. 

I       in.— Bodily  Illness  as  a  Mental  Stimulant. 
IV. —  Dual  Consciousness. 


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THE    HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


No.  33. 

VIGNETTES    FROM 

tionist  at  Large." 


NATURE.— By  GRANT  ALLEN,  author  of  "The  Evolu. 


I. — Fallow  Deer. 
II.— Sedge  and  Woodbrush. 
III.— Red  Campion  aud  White. 
IV.— Butterfly -Hun  ting  Begins. 
V.— Red  Campion  Again. 
VI.— The  Hedgehog's  Hole. 
VII.—  On  Musbnrv  Castle. 
VIII.— A  Big  Fossil  Bone. 
IX. —  Veronica. 
X.— Guelder  Rose. 
XI.— The  Heron's  Haunt. 


CONTENTS. 

XII.— A  Bed  of  Nettles. 
XIII.— Loosestrife  and  Pimpernel. 
XIV.— The  Carp  Pond. 
XV.— A  Welsh  Roadside. 
XVI.— Seaside  Weeds. 
XVII.— A  Mountain  Tarn. 
XVIII.— Wild  Thyme. 
XIX.— The  Donkey's  Ancestors. 
XX.— Beside  the  Cromlech. 
XXI.— The  Fall  of  the  Leaf. 
XXII.— The  Fall  of  the  Year. 


No.  34. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  STYLE.— By  HERBERT  SPENCER,  author  of  "First 
Principles  of  Philosophy,"  ''Social  Statics,"  "Elements  of  Psychology,"  "Ele- 
ments of  Biology,"  "Education,"  &c. 

CONTENTS. 

PART  I. —  Causes  of  Force  in  Language  which  depend  upon  Economy  of  the  Mental 

Energies. 


I.— The  Principle  of  Economy  applied  to 
Words. 

II.— The  Effect  of  Figurative  Language  Ex- 
plained. 


III. — Arrangement  of  Minor  Images  in  Build- 
ing up  a  Thought. 

IV.— The  Superiority  of  Poetry  to  Prose 
Explained. 


PART  II. —  Causes  of  Force  in  Language  which  depend  upon  Economy  of  the  Mental 

Sensibilities. 

TO   WHICH    IS    ADDED 

THE    MOTHER   TONGUE.— By  ALEXANDER  BAIN,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Logic 
in  the  University  of  Aberdeen. 


CONTENTS. 


Conditions   of  Language  Acquisition  Generally. 
The  Mother  Tongue. 
Teaching  Grammar. 


The  Age  for  Commencing  Grammar. 
The  Higher  Composition. 
English  Literature. 


No.  35. 

ORIENTAL    RELIGIONS.— By  JOHN  CAIRD,  S.T.D.,  President  of  the  Univer- 
sity  of  Glasgow,  and  other  authors. 

CONTENTS. 

Religion  of  China. — Confucianism. 

By  Rev.  GEORGE  MATHESOF. 


Religions  of  India.  • 


'.. —  Brahmanism. 
:.- Buddhism. 
By  JOHN  CAIRD,  S.T.D. 


Religion  of  Persia.— Zoroaster  and    the  Zend 
Avesta.  By  Rev.  JOHN  MILNE,  M.A. 


LECTURES   ON    EVOLUTION.-With  an  Appendix  on  The  Study 
of   Biology.— By  THOMAS  H.  HUXLEY. 


CONTENTS. 
I.— THREE  LECTURES  ON  EVOLUTION. 


Lecture   I.— The   Three   Hypotheses    respecting 

the  History  of  Nature. 
Lecture  II. — The  Hypothesis  of  Evolution. — The 

Neutral  and  the  Favorable  Evidence. 


Lecture  III.  —  The   Demonstrative    Evidence    of 
Evolution. 


n.— A  LECTURE  ON  THE  STUDY  OF  BIOLOGY. 


No.  37. 

SIX     LECTURES    ON     LIGHT.- By  Prof.  JOHN  TYNDALL,  F.R.S. 


Lecture     I. — Introductory. 
Lecture   II. —  Origin  of  Physical  Theories. 
Lecture  III.— Relation  of  Theories  to  Experience. 
Lecture  IV. — Chromatic  Phenomena  produced  by 
Crystals  on  Polarized  Light. 


CONTENTS. 

Lecture  V. —  Range  of  Vision  incommensurate 
with  Range  of  Radiation. 

Lecture  VI.— Principles  of  Spectrum  Analysis. 
—  Solar  Chemistry. —  Summary 
and  Conclusions. 


Published    semi-montnly.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR    SCIENCE. 


No.  38  and  No.  39.  [15  cents  each  number. 

GEOLOGICAL  SKETCHES  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD.- By  ARCH- 
IBALD GEIKIE,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  Director-General  of  the  Geological  Surveys  of 
Great  Britaiu  and  Ireland. — In  Two  Parts,  each  complete  in  itself. 

CONTENTS. 


PART  I.—  No.  38. 
I.—  My  First  Geological  Excursion. 
H.—  -the  Old  Man  of  Hoy." 
III.—  The  Baron's  Stone  of  "Killochan. 
IV.—  The  Colliers  of  Carrick. 
V.  —  Among  the  Volcanoes  of  Central  France. 
VI.—  The  Old  Glaciers  of  Norway  and  Scotland. 
VII.—  Rock-Weathering  Measured  by  the  Decay 
of  Tombstones. 


PART  II.— No.  39. 

I. — A  Fragment  of  Primeval  Europe. 
II.— In   Wyoming. 

HI.—  The  Geysers  of  the  Yellowstone. 
IV.—  The  Lava  Fields  of  Northwestern  Europe. 
V.—  The  Scottish  School  of  Geology. 
VI.— Geographical  Evolution. 
VII.— The  Geological  Influences  which  have  affect- 
ed the  Course  of  British  History. 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    EVIDENCE    OF    ORGANIC    EVOLUTION.-By 

GEORGE  J.  ROMANES,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  Zoological  Secretary  of  the  Linnean 
Society,  London. 

CONTENTS. 


V.— The  Argument  from  Geographical  Distribu- 
VI. —  The  Argument  from  Embryology.        [tion. 
VII. —  Arguments  drawn   from  Certain  General 
Considerations. 


TO    WHICH    IS    ADDED 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    EVOLUTION.-By 


I. —  Introduction. 

II. —  The  Argument  from  Classification.  [are. 
III. —  The  Argument  from  Morphology  or  Struct- 
IV.— The  Argument  from  Geology. 

PALEONTOLOGY    AND 

Prof.  THOMAS  H.  HUXLEY. 

NATURAL  SELECTION   AND   NATURAL  THEOLOGY.- By  EUSTACE 

R.  CONDER,  D.D. 
No.  41. 
CURRENT    DISCUSSIONS     IN     SCIENCE.-By  W.  MATTIBU  WILLIAMS, 

F.R.A.S.,  F.C.S.,  author  of  "The  Fuel  of  the  Sun,"  "Through  Norway  with  a 

Knapsack,"  "A  Simple  Treatise  on  Heat,"  &c. 


I. —  Meteoric  Astronomy. 
II.— Dr.  Siemens's  Theory  of  the  Sun. 
III.— Another  World   Down   Here. 
IV.— The  Origin  of  Volcanoes. 
V.— Note  on  the  Direct  Effect  of  Sun-Spots  on 

Terrestrial  Climates. 
VI.— The  Philosophy  of  the  Radiometer  and  its 

Cosmical  Revelations. 
VII.— The  Solidity  of  the  Earth. 
VIII. —  Meteoric  Astronomy. 


CONTENTS. 
IX 


.— Aerial  Exploration  of  the  Arctic  Regions. 
.— "Baily's  Beads." 
XI.— World-smashing. 
XII.— On    the    so-called   "Crater-Necks"  and 

"Volcanic  Bombs"  of  Ireland. 
XIII.— Travertine. 
XIV.—  Murchison  and  Babbage. 
XV.— The  "Consumption  of  Smoke." 
XVI.— The  Air  of  Stove-heated  Rooms. 


No.  42. 

HISTORY     OF 

POLLOCK. 


THE      SCIENCE      OF      POLITICS.- By   FREDERICK 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  I. — Introductory. —  Place  of  the  Theory 
of  Politics  in  Human  Knowledge. 

Chapter  II.— The  Classic  Period:  Pericles— Soc- 
rates—Plato— Aristotle.— The  Greek  Ideal  of 
the  State. 

Chapter  HI.— The  Mediaeval  Period:  The  Papacy 
and  the  Empire. — Thomas  Aquinas — Dante — 
Bracton— Marsilio  of  Padua. 

Chapter  IV.— The  Modem  Period:  Maehiavelli— 
Jean  Bodin— Sir  Thomas  Smith— Hobbes. 


Chapter  V.— The  Modern  Period  (continued): 
Hooker — Locke — Rousseau — Blackstone. 

Chapter  VI. — The  Modern  Period  (continued): 
Hume — Montesquieu — Burke. 

Chapter  VII.—  The  Present  Century:  Political 
Sovereignty— Limits  of  State  Intervention— 
Bentham  —Austin— Maine— Bagehot— Kant  — 
Ahrens  —  Savigny  —  Oornewall  Lewis — John 
Stuart  Mill— Herbert  Spencer— Laboulaye. 


No.  43. 

DARWIN    AND    HUMBOLDT.-Their    Lives    and    Work.-By  Prof. 

HUXLEY  and  others. 

CONTENTS. 


CHARLES    DARWIN. 

I.— Introductory  Notice.— By  TH.  H.  HUXLEY. 
II.— Life  and  Character.  — By  GEO.  J.  ROMANES. 
III.— Work  in  Geology.— By  ARCHIBALD  GEIKIE. 
IV.— Work  in  Botany.-ByW.T.THiSELTON  DYER. 
V.— Work  in  Zoology.— By  GEO.  J.  ROMANES. 
VI.— Work  in  Psychology.— By  GEO.  J.  ROMANES. 


ALEXANDER  VON   HUMBOLDT. 

I.— An  Address  delivered  by  Louis  AOASSIZ  at 
the  Centennial  Anniversary  of  the  birth  of  ALEX- 
ANDER VON  HUMBOLDT,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Boston  Society  of  Natural  History,  Sept.  14. 1869. 

II.— Remarks  by  Prof.  FREDERIC  H.  HKDGI,  of 
Harvard  University. 


THE   HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING  CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


No.  44  and  No.  45. 


[15  cents  each  number. 


THE     DAWN     OF     HISTORY.-  An     Introduction     to     Prehistoric 

Study.  —  Edifced    *>y  C.  F.  KEARY,  M.A.,  of    the  British  Museum.  —  In  Two 
Parts,  each  complete  in  itself. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I— No.  44. 

Chapter      I.— The  Earliest  Traces  of  Man. 
Chapter     II. — The  Second   Stone  Age. 
Chapter  III.— The  Growth  of  Language. 
Chapter   IV. —  Families  of  Language. 
Chapter     V.— The  Nations  of  the  Old  "World. 
Chapter   VI.— Early  Social  Life. 
Chapter  VII. —  The  Village  Community. 


PART  II.— No.  45. 
Chapter  VIII.—  Religion. 
Chapter     IX.— Aryan  Religions. 
Chapter      X.— The  Other  World. 
Chapter     XI.— Mythologies  and  Folk-Tales. 
Chapter  XII.— Picture- Writing. 
Chapter  XIII.— Phonetic  Writing.  [hies. 

Chapter  XIV. —  Conclusion. — Notes  and  Author- 


THE     DISEASES    OF     MEMORY.- By  TH.  EIBOT,  author  of  "Heredity," 
"English  Psychology," &c.— Translated  from  the  French  by  J.  FITZGERALD,  A.M. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  I.— MEMORY  AS  A  BIOLOGICAL  FACT. 

Memory  essentially  a  biological  fact,  incident- 
ally a  psychic  fact. —  Organic  memory. —  Mod- 
ifications of  nerve-elements:  dynamic  associa- 
tions between  these  elements. — Conscious  mem- 
ory.—Conditions  of  consciousness:  intensity; 
diiration.  —  Unconscious  cerebration.  —  Nerve- 
action  is  the  fundamental  condition  of  memory; 
consciousness  is  only  an  accessory. —  Localiza- 
tion in  the  past,  or  recollection. —  Mechanism 
of  this  operation.— It  is  not  a  simple  and  instan- 
taneous act;  it  consists  of  the  addition  of  sec- 
ondary states  of  consciousness  to  the  principal 
state  of  consciousness. —  Memoiy  is  a  vision  in 
time. — Localization,  theoretical  and  practical. — 
Reference  points. —  Resemblance  and  difference 
between  localization  in  the  future  and  in  the 
past. — All  memory  an  illusion.  —  Forgetfulness 
a  condition  of  memory. — Return  to  the  starting- 
point  :  conscious  memory  tends  little  by  little  to 
become  automatic. 

Chapter  IL— GENERAL  AMNESIA. 

Classification  of  the  diseases  of  memory.— Tem- 
porary amnesia. —  Epileptics. — Forgetfulness  of 
certain  periods  of  life. —  Examples  of  re-educa- 
tion.— Slow  and  sudden  recoveries. — Case  of  pro- 
visional memory. —  Periodical  or  intermittent 
amnesia.— Formation  of  two  memories,  totally 
or  partially  distinct. —  Cases  of  hypnotism  re- 
corded by  Maenish,  Azam,  and  Dufay. — Progress- 
ive amnesia. —  Its  importance. — Reveals  the  law 
which  governs  the  destruction  of  memory. — Law 
of  regression :  enunciation  of  this  law.— In  what 


order  me_mory  fails. — Counter-proof:  it  is  recon- 
stituted in  inverse  order. — Confirmatory  facts. — 
Congenital  amnesia. — Extraordinary  memory  of 
some  idiots. 

Chapter  III.— PARTIAL  AMNESIA. 
Reduction  of  memory  to  memories. —  Anatomical 
and  physiological  reasons  for  partial  memories. 
— Amnesia  of  numbers,  names,  figures. forms.&c. 
—Amnesia  of  signs.— Its  nature :  a  loss  of  motor- 
memory. — Examination  of  this  point. — Progress- 
ive amnesia  of  signs  verifies  completely  the  law 
of  regression.  —  Order  of  dissolution  :  proper 
names:  common  nouns;  verbs  and  adjectives; 
interjections,  and  language  of  the  emotions; 
gestures. — Relation  between  this  dissolution  and 
the  evolution  of  the  Indo-European  languages.— 
Counter-proof :  return  of  signs  in  inverse  order. 

Chapter  IV. —  EXALTATION  OF  MEMORY,  OR 

HYPERMNESIA. 

Geiieral  excitation. — Partial  excitation. —  Return 
of  lost  memories.  —  Return  of  forgotten  lan- 
guages.— Reduction  of  this  fact  to  the  law  of  re- 
gression.—Case  of  false  memory.— Examples, 
and  a  suggested  explanation. 

Chapter  V.—  CONCLUSION. 

Relations  between  the  retention  of  perceptions 
and  nutrition,  between  the  reproduction  of  rec- 
ollections and  the  general  and  local  circulation. 
—  Influence  of  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the 
blood. —  Examples. —  The  law  of  regression  con- 
nected with  a  physiological  principle  and  a  psy- 
chological principle.— Recapitulation. 


No.  47. 


THE   CHILDHOOD  OF  RELIGIONS.-Embracing  a  Simple  Account 
of  the  Birth   and  Growth  of  Myths  and   Legends.— By  EDWARD 

CLODD,  F.E.A.S.,  author  of  "The  Childhood   of  the  World,"  "The  Story  of 
Creation,"  &c. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I.— Introductory.  [tion. 

Chapter  II.— Legends  of  the  Past  about  the  Crea- 
Chapter  III. —  Creation  as  told  by  Science. 
Chapter  IV.— Legends  of  the  Past  about  Mankind. 
Chapter  V.— Early  Races  of  Mankind.  [tions. 
Chapter  VI. — The  Aryan,  or  Indo-European  na- 
ChapterVII.— The  Ancient  and  Modern  Hindu 
Religions. 


Chapter  VTII.— Zoroastrianism,  the  Ancient  Re- 
ligion of  Persia. 
Chapter     IX.— Buddhism. 
Chapter       X. —  The  Religions  of  China. 
Chapter     XL— The  Semitic  Nations. 
Chapter  XII. —  Mohammedanism,  or  Islam. 
Chapter  XIII.— On  the  Study  of  the  Bible. 


Published    semi-montnly.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR     SCIENCE. 


No.  48. 

LIFE     IN     NATURE.-By  JAMES  HINTON,  author 
Place,"   "The  Mystery  of  Pain,"  &e. 


of  "Man  and  his  Dwelling- 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  I.— Of  Function;  or,  How  We  Act 
Chapter  II.— Of  Nutrition;  or,  Why  We  Grc 
Chapter  III.— Of  Nutrition;  The  Vital  Force. 


Chapter  VIII.— Nature  and  Man. 

Chapter     IX.— The  Phenomenal  and  the  True. 

Chapter       X.— Force. 


Chapter  IV.  —  Of  Living  Forms:  or.  Morphology. 
Chapter     V.—  Living  Forms.—  The  Law  of  Form. 
Chapter  VI—  Is  Life  Universal? 
Chapter  VII—  The  Living  World. 

Chapter     XL—  The  Organic  and  the  Inorganic. 
Chapter   XII—  The  Life  of  Man. 
Chapter  XIII.—  Conclusion. 

No.  49. 

THE    SUN:    Its    Constitution; 

By  NATHAN   T.  CAUR,  LL.D.,  Judge 
With  an  Appendix  by  EICHARD  A. 

CONT 
Section        I.—  Purpose  of  this  Essay.—  Difficulties 
of  the  Subject. 
Section      H.  —  Distance  from  the  Earth  to  the  Sun. 
Section    III—  The  Diameter  of  the  Sun. 
Section     IV.—  The  Form  of  the  Sun. 
Section      V.  —  Rotary  Motion  of  the  Sun. 
Section    VI.—  Perturbating  Movement. 
Section  VII.—  The  Sun's  Orbital  Movement. 
Section  VIII.—  The  Sun's  Attractive  Force.—  Den- 
sity of  the  Solar  Mass. 
Section     IX.—  The  Son's  Atmosphere. 
Section       X.  —  The  Chromosphere. 
Section     XI.  —  Corona,  Prominences,  and  Faculw. 
Section    XII.—  The  Photosphere. 
Section  XIII.—  The  Sun's  Heat. 
Section  XIV.—  Condition  of  the  Interior. 
Section    XV.—  Effects  of  Heat  on  Matter. 

Appendix  —  First.—  The  Sun's  Corona  a 
Second.—  The  Fuel  of  the  J 
Third.—  The  Fuel  of  the  Si 

ts    Phenomena;    Its   Condition.— 

of  the  Ninth  Judicial  Circuit  of  Indiana. 
PROCTOR  and  M.  W.  WILLIAMS. 

ENTS. 
Section     XVI.—  The  Expansive  Power  of  Heat. 
Section    XVII.—  The  Sun's  Crust. 
Section  XVIII.—  The  Gaseous  Theory. 
Section     XIX—  The  Vapor  Theory. 
Section       XX—  The  "  Cloud-like  "'  Theory. 
Section      XXI.  —  Supposed  Supports  of  the  Fore- 
going Theoi'ies. 
Section    XXII.—  The  Crust  in  a  Fluid  Condition. 
Section  XXIII—  Production  of  the  Sun-Spots. 
Section  XXIV.—  The  Area  of  Sun-Spots  Limited. 
Section    XXV.—  Periodicity  of  the  Spots. 
Section  XXVI.—  The  Spots   are  Cavities  in  the 
Sun. 
Section  XXVII.  —  How  the  Heat  of  the  Sun  reaches 
the  Earth. 
Section  XXVIII.—  The  Question  of  the  Extinction 
of  the  Sun. 

nd  his  Spots.—  By  RICHARD  A.  PROCTOE. 
mix.—  By  RICHARD  A.  PROCTOR. 
m—  A  Reply,  by  W.  M.  WILLIAMS. 

No.  50  and  No.  51. 

MONEY  AND  THE   MECHANISI 

JEVONS,  M.A.,  F.E.S.,  Professor  of  I 
College,  Manchester,  England.  —  In  T 

CONT 
Chapter        I.—  Barter. 
Chapter       II.  —  Exchange. 
Chapter    III.—  The  Functions  of  Money. 
Chapter     IV.  —  Early  History  of  Money. 
Chapter       V.  —  Qualities  of  the  Material  of  Money 
Chapter     VI—  The  Metals  as  Money. 
Chapter   VII—  Coins. 
Chapter  VIII—  The  Principles  of  Circulation. 
Chapter     IX.—  Systems  of  Metallic  Money. 
Chapter      X—  The  English  System  of  Metallic 
Currency. 
Chapter     XL—  Fractional  Currency. 
Chapter   XII—  The  Battle  of  the  Standards. 
Chapter  XIII.—  Technical     Matters    relating    to 
Coinage. 
Chapter  XIV.—  International  Money. 

[15  cents  each  number. 

Yl    OF    EXCHANGE.-  By  W.STANLEY 

jogic  and  Political  Economy  in  the  Owens 
wo  Parts. 

ENTS. 
Chapter       XV.—  The  Mechanism  of  Exchange. 
Chapter     XVI.—  Representative  Money. 
Chapter    XVII—  The    Nature    and   Varieties   of 
Promissory  Notes. 
Chapter  XVIII—  Methods  of  Regulating  a  Paper 
Currency. 
Chapter     XIX.—  Credit  Documents.        [System. 
Chapter       XX—  Book  Credit  and  the  Banking 
Chapter     XXL—  The  Clearing-House  System. 
Chapter    XXII—  The  Check  Bank. 
Chapter  XXIII—  Foreign  Bills  of  Exchange. 
Chapter  XXTV.—  The  Bank  of  England  and  the 
Money  Market. 
Chapter    XXV—  A  Tabular  Standard  of  Value. 
Chapter  XXVI—  The  Quantity  of  Money  needed 
by  a  Nation. 

No.  52. 

THE     DISEASES     OF    THE    WILL- By  TH.  EIBOT.  author  of  "The  Dis- 
eases of  Memory,"  &c.— Translated  from  the  French  by  J.  FITZGERALD,  A.M. 


CONTENTS. 

Chapter     I.— Introduction.-The  Question  Stated. 
Chapter   II.— Impairment  of  the  Will.— Lack  of 

Impulsion. 
Chapter  III.— Impairment  of  the  Will.— Excess  of 

Impulsion. 


Chapter  IV.—  Impairment  of  VoluntaryAttention. 
Chapter     V. — The  Realm  of  Caprice. 
Chapter  VI.— Extinction  of  the  Will. 

Chapter  VII. — Conclusion. 


THE   HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING  CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


ANIMAL    AUTOMATISM,   AND    OTHER    ESSAYS.- By  THOMAS 
HENRY  HUXLEY,  LL.D.,  F.E.S. 


CONTENTS. 


I.— On    the    Hypothesis    that    Animals    are 

Automata,  and  its  History. 
II. —  Science  and   Culture. 
III.— On  Elementary  Instruction  in  Physiology. 


IV.— On   the    Border   Territory   between    the 
Animal  and  the  Vegetable  Kingdoms. 
V.— Universities:  Actual  and  Ideal. 


No.  54. 

THE  BIRTH  AND  GROWTH  OF  MYTHS.-By  EDWARD  CLODD, 
F.R.A.S.,  author  of  "The  Childhood  of  the  World,"  "The  Childhood  of  Re- 
ligions," "The  Story  of  Creation,"  &c. 

CONTENTS. 


I.— Nature  as  Viewed  by  Primitive  Man. 
II.— Personification  of  the  Powers  of  Nature. 
HI.— The  Sun  and  Moon  in  Mythology. 
IV. — The    Theories    of    Certain    Comparative 

Mythologists. 
V.— Aryan  Mythology. 

VI.— The  Primitive  Mature-Myth  Transformed. 
VTI.—  The  Stars  in  Mythology. 
VIII.— Myths  of  the  Destructive  Forces  of  Nature. 
IX.— The  Hindu  Sun-and-Cloud  Myth. 
X.— Demonology. 


XI. —  Metempsychosis  and  Transformation. 
XII. — Transformation   in  the   Middle  Ages. 
XIIL— The  Belief  in  Transformation  Universal. 
XIV.—  Beast-Fables. 
XV.— Totemism. 

XVI.— Heraldry:  Ancestor-worship.          [tives. 
XVII.— Survival  of  Myth  in  Historical  Narra. 
XVin.— Myths  of  King  Arthur  and  Llewellyn. 
XIX -Semitic  Myths  and  Legends. 
XX.— Conclusion. 
Appendix. —  An  American  Indian  Myth. 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    BASIS  OF  MORALS,  AND  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

By  WILLIAM  KINGDON  CLIFFORD,  F.R.S. 

CONTENTS. 

I.— On  the  Scientific  Basis  of  Morals.  I    HI.— The  Ethics  of  Belief. 

II.— Right    and  Wrong:    the  Scientific  Ground    I     IV.— The  Ethics  of  Religion, 
of  their  Distinction.  | 

No.  56  and  No.  57.  [15  cents  each   number. 

ILLUSIONS:    A    PSYCHOLOGICAL    STUDY.- By  JAMES  SULLY,  author 
of  "Sensation  and  Intuition,"  "Pessimism,"  &c. —  In  Two  Parts. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     L— The  Study  of  Illusion. 
Chapter    II.— The  Classification  of  Illusions. 
Chapter  III. — Illusions  of  Perception :  General. 
Chapter  IV.— Illusions  of  Perception  (continued). 
Chapter    V. —  Illusions  of  Perception  (continued). 
Chapter  VT.— Illusions  of  Perception  (continued). 
Chapter  VII. —  Dreams. 


Chapter  VIII.— Illusions  of  Introspection. 
Chapter     EX.— Other   Quasi-Presentative    Illu- 
sions:   Errors  of  Insight. 
Chapter       X.— Illusions  of  Memory. 
Chapter     XI.— Illusions  of  Belief. 
Chapter   XII.— Results. 


No.  58  and  No.  59. 


Two  double  numbers,  3O  cents  each. 


THE    ORIGIN    OF  SPECIES    BY  MEANS  OF  NATURAL  SELEC- 
TION, or  the  Preservation   of  Favored    Races   in   the   Struggle 

for   Life.—  By  CHARLES  DARWIN,  M.A.,  F.R.S.—  New  edition,  from  the  sixth 
and  latest  English  edition,  with  additions  and  corrections.  —  Two  double  numbers. 


CONT 
Chapter       I.—  Variation  under  Domestication. 
Chapter      II.  —  Variation  under  Nature. 
Chapter    III.—  Struggle  for  Existence. 
Chapter     IV.—  Natural   Selection:    or,   the  Sur- 
vival of  the  Fittest. 
Chapter      V.—  Laws  of  Variation. 
Chapter     VI.—  Difficulties  of  the  Theory. 
Chapter  VII.—  Miscellaneous  Objections  to  the 
Theory  of  Natural  Selection. 
Chapter  VTII.—  Instinct. 
Chapter     LX.—  Hybridism. 

E  N  T  S. 
Chapter      X.—  On  the  Imperfection  of  the  Geo- 
logical Record. 
Chapter     XI.—  On  the  Geological  Succession  oi 
Organic   Beings. 
Chapter   XII.—  Geological  Distribution. 
Chapter  XIIL—  Geological  Distribution  (contin'd). 
Chapter  XIV.—  Mutual  Affinities  of  Organic  Be- 
ings :  Morphology:  Embryology: 
Rudimentary  Organs. 
Chapter  XV.—  Recapitulation  and  Conclusion. 
Index.—  Glossary  of  Scientific  Terms. 

Published    semi-monthly.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR    SCIENCE. 


No.  60. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  THE  WORLD.-A  Simple  Account  of  Man 
in  Early  Times.— By  EDWARD  CLODD,  F.K.A.S.,  author  of  "The  Childhood 
of  Religions,"  "The  Story  of  Creation,"  &c. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I. 

I. — Introductory. 
II— Man's  First  Wants. 
III.— Man's  First  Tools. 
IV.— Fire. 

V.— Cooking  and  Pottery. 
VI.— Dwellings. 
VII.— Use  of  Metals. 
VIII.— Man's  Great  Age  on  the  Earth. 
IX. —  Mankind   as    Shepherds,   Farmers,   and 

Traders. 
X. — Language. 
XI.— Writing. 
XII.— Counting. 

XIII. — Man's  Wanderings  from  his  first  Home. 
XIV.—  Man's  Progress  in  all  things. 
XV.— Decay  of  Peoples. 

PART  II. 

XVI.—  Introductory. 
XVIL—  Man's  First  Questions. 
XVIII.— Myths. 


XIX.— Myths  about  Sun  and  Moon. 
XX.— Myths  about  Eclipses. 
XXI.— Myths  about  Stars. 
XXII.— Myths  about  the  Earth  and  Man. 
XXIIL— Man's  Ideas  about  the  Soul. 
XXIV.- Belief  in  Magic  and  Witchcraft. 
XXV.— Man's  Awe  of  the  Unknown. 
XXVI.—  Fetish  -Worship. 
XXVII.— Idolatry. 
XXVIII.—  Nature'- Worship. 

1.  Water -Worship. 

2.  Tree -Worship. 

3.  Animal -Worship. 
XXIX.— Polytheism,  or  Belief  in  Many  Gods. 

XXX.— Dualism,  or  Belief  in  Two  Gods. 
XXXI.— Prayer. 
XXXII.— Sacrifice. 

XXXIII.— Monotheism,  or  Belief  in  One  God. 
XXXIV.— Three  Stories  About  Abraham. 
XXXV.— Man's  Belief  in  a  Future  Life. 
XXXVI.— Sacred  Books. 
XXXVII.— Conclusion. 


No.  61. 

MISCELLANEOUS     ESSAYS,-By  RICHARD  A.  PBOCTOK,  B.A,  F.R.A.S., 
author  of  "The  Sun,"  "Other  Worlds  than  Ours,"  "Saturn,"  &c. 

CONTENTS. 
I. —  Strange  Coincidences. 
II. — Coincidences  and  Superstitions. 
III. —  Gambling  Superstitions. 


TV. —  Learning  Languages. 


V.  —  Strange  Sea  Creatures. 
VI.—  The  Origin  of  Whales. 


VII.—  Prayer  and  Weather. 


No.  62. 


[Double  number,  SO  cents. 


THE    RELIGIONS    OF  THE   ANCIENT   WORLD,  including   Egypt, 
Assyria  and  Babylonia,  Persia,  India,  Phoenicia,  Etruria,  Greece, 

Rome.  —  By  GEORGE  RAWLINSON,  M.A.,  Camden  Professor  of  Ancient  History, 
Oxford,  and  Canon  of  Canterbury.—  Author  of  "The  Origin  of  Nations,"  "The 

Five  Great  Monarchies,"  &c. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I.  — The    Religion    of    the    Ancient 

Egyptians. 
Chapter    II.  — The  Religion  of  the  Assyrians 

and  Babylonians. 
Chapter  III.  — The    Religion    of    the    Ancient 

Iranians. 
Chapter  IV.  — The     Religion     of     the     Early 

Sanskritic    Indians. 


Chapter  V.— The  Religion  of  the  Phoenicians 
and  Carthaginians. 

Chapter     VI.— The  Religion  of   the  Etruscans. 

Chapter  VII.— The  Religion  of  the  Ancient 
Greeks. 

Chapter  VIII.— The  Religion  of  the  Ancient 
Romans. 

Concluding  Remarks. 


No.  63. 


PROGRESSIVE    MORALITY.-An    Essay   in   Ethics.- By  THOMAS 

FOWLER,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  F.S.A.,  President  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Wykeham 
Professor  of  Logic  in  the  University  of  Oxford. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter      I.  — Introduction.— The    Sanctions    of 

Conduct. 
Chapter    II.  — The    Moral    Sanction    or    Moral 

Sentiment. — Its   Functions,  and 

the  Justification  of  its  Claims  to 

Superiority. 


Chapter  III.  —  Analysis  and  Formation  of  the 
Moral  Sentiment.— Its  Education 
and  Improvement. 

Chapter  IV.— The  Moral  Test  and  its  Justification. 

Chapter  V. —  The  Practical  Application  of  the 
Moral  Test  to  Existing  Morality. 


THE   HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING  CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


THE    DISTRIBUTION    OF   LIFE,  Animal   and  Vegetable,  in  Space 
and  Time.— By  ALFRED  KUSSEL  WALLACE  and  W.  T.  THISELTON  DYER. 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION  I.— DISTRIBUTION  OF  ANIMALS. 
Geographical  Distribution  of  Land  Animals. 
A.— Vertical  Distribution  of  Animals. 
B.— Powers  of   Dispersal  of  Animals. 
C. —  Widespread  and  Local  Groups.  [mals. 

D.— Barriers  which  Limit  the  Distribution  of  Ani- 
E.— Zoological  Regions. 

The  Pafcearetic  Region. 
The  Ethiopian  Region. 
The  Oriental  Region. 
The  Australian  Region. 
The  Neotropical  Region. 
The  Nearctic  Region. 
Distribution  of  the  Higher  Animals  during  the 

Tertiary  Period. 

A.— Tertiary  Faunas  and  their  Geographical  Rela- 
tions to  those  of  the  six  Zoological  Regions. 
B.— Birthplace  and  Migrations  of  some  Mamma- 
lian Families  and  Genera. 
Distribution  of  Marine  Animals. 

Foraminifera.  Cirrhipedia. 

Spougida.  Mollusea. 

Actinozoa.  Fishes. 

Polyzoa.  Marine  Turtles. 

Echinodermata.  Cetacea. 

Crustacea. 


General    Relations    of    Marine   with   Terrestrial 

Zoological  Regions. 
Distribution  of  Animals  in  Time. 


SECTION  n.— DISTRIBUTION  OF  VEGETABLE  LIFE. 

THE  NORTHERN  FLORA. 
The  Arctic-Alpine  Flora. 
The  Intermediate  or  Temperate  Flora. 
The  Mediterraneo-Caucasian  Flora. 

THE  SOUTHERN  FLORA. 

The  Antarctic-Alpine  Flora. 

The  Australian  Flora. 

The  Andine  Flora. 

The  Mexico-Californian  Flora. 

The  South-African  Flora. 

THE  TROPICAL  FLORA. 

The  Indo-Malayan  Tropical  Flora. 
The  American  Tropical  Flora. 
The  African  Tropical  Flora. 


No.  65. 


CONDITIONS    OF  MENTAL  DEVELOPMENT,  and   Other  Essays. 

By  WILLIAM  KINGDON  CLIFFORD,  F.R.S.,  late  Professor  of  Applied  Mathematics 
in  University  College,  London. 


CONTENTS. 


I.  — On    some   of    the    Conditions   of    Mental 

Development. 

II.  —  On  the  Aims  and  Instruments  of  Scientific 
Thought. 


III. —  A  Lecture  on  Atoms. 

IV. —  The  First  and  the  Last  Catastrophe. — A  crit- 
icism on  some  recent  speculations  about 
the  duration  of  the  universe. 


No.  66. 

TECHNICAL     EDUCATfON,    AND     OTHER     ESSAYS.-By 

THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY,  F.E.S. 

CONTENTS. 

L— Technical  Education.  I    IV.— On  Sensation  and  the  Unity  of  Structure  of 

II.— The  Connection  of  the  Biological  Sciences  Sensiferous  Organs. 

with  Medicine.  V. — On  Certain  Errors  respecting  the  Structure 

III.— Joseph  Priestly.  |  of  the  Heart  attributed  to  Aristotle. 

No.  67. 

THE    BLACK    DEATH:    An  Account  of  the  Deadly  Pestilence  of 

the  Fourteenth  Century.— By  J-  F-  C.  HECKER,  M.D.,  Professor  in  the 
Frederick  William  University,  Berlin;  Member  of  various  learned  societies  in 
London,  Lyons,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  &c. —  Translated  for  the  Sydenham 
Society,  of  London,  by  B.  G.  BABINGTON,  M.IX,  F.E.S. 


Chapter      I. —  General  Observations. 
Chapter    II.— The  Disease. 
Chapter  III.— Causes.— Spread. 
Chapter  IV.— Mortality. 
Chapter    V.— Moral  E'ffects. 
Chapter  VI.— Physicians. 


CONTENTS. 

Appendix. 

I.— The  Ancient  Song  of  the  Flagellants. 
II. —  Examination  of   the  Jews    accused  of 
Poisoning  the  Wells. 


Published    semi-montlily.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR     SCIENCE. 


No-  68-  Special  number,  1O  cents. 

LAWS   IN   GENERAL,  AND  THE  ORDER  OF  THEIR  DISCOVERY. 
THE   ORIGIN    OF  ANIMAL  WORSHIP.- POLITICAL   FETICHISM. 

Three  Essays  by  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

No.  69.  [Double  number,  3O  cents. 

FETICH  ISM.- A  Contribution  to  Anthropology  and  the  History  of 

Religion.—  By  FRITZ  SCHULTZE,  Dr.  Phil.— Translated  from  the  German  by 
J.  FITZGERALD,  M.A. 


CONTENTS. 

Chapter      I. — Introductory.  Chapter 

Chapter    II.— The  Mind  of  the  Savage  in  its  In-  1. 

tellectual  and  Moral  Aspects.  2. 

1.  The  Intellect  of  the  Savage.  3. 

2.  The  Morality  of  the  Savage.  4. 

3.  Conclusion.  5. 
Chapter  III.— The  Relation  between  the  Savage  6. 

Mind  and  its  Object.  7. 

1.  The  Value  of  Objects.                      fleets.  Chapter 

2.  The  Anthropathic  Apprehension  of  Ob-  1. 

3.  The  Causal  Connection  of  Objects.  2. 
Chapter  IV.— Fetichisin  as  a  Religion.  3. 

1.  The  Belief  in  Fetiches.  4. 

2.  The  Range  of  Fetich  Influence.  5. 

3.  The  Religiosity  of  Fetich  Worshipers.  6. 

4.  Worship  and  Sacrifice.  7. 

5.  Fetich  Priesthoods.  Chapter 

6.  Fetichisin  among  Non-Savages.  1. 


V.— The  Various  Objects  of  Fetich  Wor- 
Stones  as  Fetiches.  [ship. 

Mountains  as  Fetiches. 
Water  as  a  Fetich. 
Wind  and  Fire  as  Fetiches. 
Plants  as  Fetiches. 
Animals  as  Fetiches. 
Men  as  Fetiches. 

VI.— The  Highest  Grade  of  Fetichism. 
The  New  Object. 

The  Gradual  Acquisition  of  Knowledge. 
The  Worship  of  the  Moon. 
The  Worship  of  the  Stars. 
The  Transition  to  Sun -Worship. 
The  Worship  of  the  Sun. 
The  Worship  of  the  Heavens. 
VII.— The  Aim  of  Fetichism. 
Retrospect.— 2.  The  New  Problem. 


No.  70. 

ESSAYS,   SPECULATIVE 


AND     PRACTICAL.- By  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


CONTENTS. 


I.—  Specialized  Administration. 
H.— "The  Collective  Wisdom." 
III.— Morals  and  Moral  Sentiments. 


TV.— Reasons  for  Dissenting  from  the  Philosophy 

of  Comte. 
V.— What  is  Electricity? 


ANTHROPOLOGY.— By  DANIEL  WILSON,  LL.D.,  author  of  "Prehistoric  Man." 


Chapter     I.— Scope  of  the.  Science. 
Chapter   II. —  Man's  Place  in  Nature. 
Chapter  III.— Origin  of  Man. 
Chapter  IV.— Races  of  Mankind. 


CONTENTS. 

Chapter     V.— Antiquity  of  Man. 

Chapter    VI. —  Language. 

Chapter  VII.— Development  of  Civilization. 


TO   WHICH    IS    ADDED 

ARCHEOLOGY.  — By  E.  B.  TYLOR,  F.R.S.,  author  of  "The   Early  History  of 
Mankind,"  "Primitive   Culture,"  &c. 


THE    DANCING     MANIA    OF    THE     MIDDLE    AGES.- By  J.  F.  c. 

HECKER,  M.D.,  Professor  in  the  Frederick  William  University,  Berlin;  author  of 
"The  Black  Death."— Translated  by  B.  G.  BABINGTON,  M.D.,  F.R.S. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter   I.— The  Dancing  Mania  in  Germany  and 

the  Netherlands. 
Sect.  1.— St.  John's  Dance. 
Sect.  2.— St.  Vitus's  Dance. 
Sect.  3. — Causes. 

Sect.  4.— More  Ancient  Dancing  Plagues. 
Sect.  5.— Physicians. 
Sect.  6. — Decline  and  Termination  of  the 
Dancing  Plague. 


Chapter  II.— The  Dancing  Mania  in  Italy. 

Sect.  1.— Tarantism. 

Sect.  2.— Most  Ancient  Traces.— Causes. 

Sect.  3. —  Increase. 

Sect.  4.—  Idiosyncracies.—  Music. 

Sect.  5.— Hysteria. 

Sect.  6. — Decrease. 
Chapter  III.— The  Dancing  Mania  in  Abyssinia, 

Sect.  1. — Tigretier. 
Chapter  IV.— Sympathy. 


THE   HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING  CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York, 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


EVOLUTION    IN    HISTORY,   LANGUAGE,  AND    SCIENCE. 

Four  addresses  delivered  at  the  London  Crystal  Palace  School  of  Art,  Science, 
and  Literature. 

Past  and  Present  in  the  East.—  A  Parallelism  demonstrating  the  principle 
of  Causal  Evolution,  and  the  necessity  of  the  study  of  General  History.  — 
By  G.  G.  ZERFFI,  D.Ph.,  Fellow  of  the  Eoyal  Historical  Society  of  London. 


for  a  More  Scientific  Study  of  Geography.-  By  Rev.  w.  A. 

HALES,  M.A.,  formerly  Exhibitioner  of  Caius  College,  Cambridge. 


Hereditary  Tendencies    as    Exhibited    in    History. -By  HENRY  ELLIOT 

MALDEN,  M.A.,  F.R.H.S.,  Trinity  Hall,  Cambridge. 
IV. 

Vicissitudes   of  the    English    Language.— By  Rev.  ROBINSON  THORNTON, 

D.D.,  F.R.H.S.,  formerly  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Oxford. 
Nos.  74,  75,  76,  77  (double  number). 

THE    DESCENT    OF    MAN,    AND    SELECTION     IN     RELATION 

TO    SEX.  — By  CHARLES    DARWIN.— With  Illustrations.— New  Edition,  Re- 
vised  and   Augmented. 

CONTENTS. 
PART  I. 

THE  DESCENT  OR  ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 
Chapter      I.— The  Evidence  of  the  Descent  of 

Man  from  some  Lower  Form. 
Chapter    II. — On  the  Manner  of  Development  of 
Man  from  some  Lower  Fc 


Chapter  III.— Comparison  of  the  Mental  Powers 
of  Man  and  the  Lower  Animals. 

Chapter  IV.— Comparison  of  the  Mental  Powers 
of  Man  and  the  Lower  Animals 
(continued). 

Chapter  V.— On  the  Development  of  the  Intel- 
lectual and  Moral  Faculties  dur- 
ing Primeval  and  Civilized  Times 

Chapter  VI.— On  the  Affinities  and  Genealogy  of 
Man. 

Chapter  VH.— On  the  Races  of  Man. 

PART  II. 
SEXUAL  SELECTION. 

Chapter     VIII.— Principles  of  Sexual  Selection. 

Chapter  IX.— Secondary  Sexual  Character  in 
the  Lower  Classes  of  the  An- 
imal Kingdom. 


Chapter 
Chapter 
Chapter 


X. —  Secondary  Sexual  Characters  of 

Insects. 
XI. — Insects  (continued) — Order  Lepi- 

doptera(butterflies  and  moths) 
XII.—  Secondary  Sexual  Characters  of 

Fishes,  Amphibians,  and  Rep- 
tiles. 
Chapter     XIII.—  Secondary  Sexual  Characters  of 

Birds.  • 

Chapter  XIV.— Birds  (continued). 
Chapter  XV.— Birds  (continued). 
Chapter  XVI.— Birds  (concluded). 
Chapter  XVII.— Secondary  Sexual  Characters  of 

Mammals. 
Chapter  XVIII.— Secondary  Sexual  Characters  of 

Mammals  (continued). 

PART  m. 
SEXUAL  SELECTION  IN  RELATION  TO  MAN, 

AND  CONCLUSION. 
Chapter     XIX.—  Secondary  Sexual  Characters  of 

Man. 

Chapter       XX.— Secondary  Sexual  Characters  of 
Man  (continued).  [sion. 

Chapter     XXI. —  General  Summary  and  Concln- 


*%  Numbers  74,  75,  76,  are  single  numbers  (15  cents  each) ;   Number  77  is  a  double  number  (30  cents). 
Price  of  the  entire  work  75  cents. 

HISTORICAL  SKETCH    OF  THE    DISTRIBUTION    OF  LAND    IN 
ENGLAND,  with  Suggestions  for  some  Improvement  in  the  law. 

By  WILLIAM  LLOYD  BIRKBECK,  M.A.,  Master  of  Downing  College,  and  Downing 
Professor  of  the  Laws  of  England  in  the  University  of  Cambridge. 


PART  I. 
I. —  Anglo-Saxon  Agriculture. —  Geneats    and 

Geburs.— Villani. 

IT.— Agriculture  after  the  Conquest.— Villein- 
age.— Copyholders. — Continental  Serfs. 
III.— Origin  of  Large  Properties.— Estates  of 
Anglo-Saxon    Nobility.  —  Evidence    of 
Domesday. 

IV. — The  Soke. — Socage  Tenure. 
V.— Agricultural  Communities. 
VI. -Mr.  Seebohm. 

VII.— The  First  Taxation  of  Land.— The  Hide. 
VIII. —  Saxon  Law  of  Succession  to  Land. 
IX. —  Effect  of  the  Norman  Conquest  on  the 

Distribution  of  Land. 
X. —  Norman  Law  of  Succession. 
XL— Strict  Entails.— The  Statute  "De  Donis 

Condi  tionalibus." 
XH.—  Effects  of  Strict  Entails.— Scotch  Entails. 


CONTENTS. 
XIII.- 


XV.- 
XVI.- 


XVIII.- 
XIX.- 


L- 

II.- 
III.- 
IV.- 


•  Relaxation  of  Strict  Entails.— Common 

Recoveries. 

-Henry  VII.  and  his  Nobles.— The  Statute 
of  Fines. 

-Strict   Settlements. 

-Effect  of  Strict  Settlements  of  Land.— 
Mr.  Thorold  Rogers. 

-Trustees  to  Preserve  Contingent  Re- 
mainders. 

•  Powers  of  Sale. 

•  Inclosure  of  Waste  Lands.  —  Mr.  John 

Walter. — Formation  of  a  Peasant  Pro- 
prietary.   

PART  II. 

-Amendment  of  Law  of  Primogeniture. 
-Proposed   System   of  Registration. 
-Modern   Registration  Acts. 
-The  Present  General  Registration  Act. 


Published    semi-montnly.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR    SCIENCE. 


No.  7B. 

SCIENTIFIC    ASPECTS    OF    SOME     FAMILIAR    THINGS.- By  w. 

M.  WILLIAMS,  F.R.S.,  F.C.S. 


CONTENTS. 


I. — On  the  Serial  Benefits  of  Paraffin. 

II.— The  Formation  of  Coal. 
HI. — The  Chemistry  of  Bog  Reclamation. 
IV.— The  Coloring  of  Green   Tea. 

V.— "Iron-Filings"  in  Tea. 
VI.— The  Origin  of  Soap. 


VII.— The  Action  of  Frost  in  Water-Pipes  and 

on   Building  Materials. 
Vni.— Fire-Clay  and  Anthracite. 
IX.— Count  Rumford's  Cooking- Stoves. 
X.— The  Air  of  Stove-Heated  Rooms. 
XI.— Domestic  Ventilation. 


No.  80.  Double  number,  3O  cents. 

CHARLES    DARWIN:    HIS    LIFE   AND   WORK.- By  GRANT  ALLEN. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I. — The  World  into  which  Darwin  was 

born. 

Chapter  II. — Charles  Darwin  and  his  Antecedents. 
Chapter  III.— Early  Days. 
Chapter  IV. — Darwin's  Wander- Years. 
Chapter    V.— The  Period  of  Incubation. 
Chapter  VI.— "  The  Origin  of  Species." 


Chapter   VTL—  The  Darwinian  Revolution  begins. 
Chapter  VIII.—  The  Descent  of  Man. 
Chapter     IX. — The  Theory  of  Courtship. 
Chapter       X.— Victory  and  Rest. 
Chapter     XI.— Darwin's  Place  in  the  Evolution- 
ary Movement. 
Chapter   XII.— The  Net  Result. 


THE     MYSTERY    OF    MATTER:     and 
THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    IGNORANCE. 


By  J.  ALLANSON  PICTON. 


ILLUSIONS     OF    THE     SENSES:    AND     OTHER    ESSAYS.-By 

RICHARD  A.  PROCTOR. 


I.—  Illusions  of  the  Senses. 
II.— Animals  of  the  Present  and  the  Past. 
III.— Life  in  Other  Worlds. 
IV.— Earthquakes. 


CONTENTS. 

V.— Our  Dual  Brain. 
VI.— A  New  Star  in  a  Star-Cloud. 
VII.— Monster  Sea-Serpents. 
VHI.— The  Origin  of  Comets. 


PROFIT-SHARING   BETWEEN   CAPITAL  AND  LABOR.-Six  Essays. 

By  SEDLEY  TAYLOR,  M.A.,  late  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  Eng. 


CONTENTS. 


Essay     I. —  Profit-Sharing  in  the  Maison  Leclaire. 
Essay   II.— Profit-Sharing  in  Industry. 
Essay  III.— Profit-Sharing  in  Industry(con«im««d). 
Essay  IV. — Profit-Sharing  in  the  Paris  and  Orleans 
Railway  Company. 


Essay  V.— Profit-Sharing  in  Agriculture. 

Appendix  to  Essay  V.  — Mr.  Vande- 
leur's  Irish  Experiment. 

Essay  VI.— Profit-Sharing  in  Distributive  Enter- 
prise. 


STUDIES    OF    ANIMATED    NATURE.- Four  Essays,  viz., 

Bats. -By  W.  S.  DALLAS,  F.L.S. 

Dragon-Flies.  — By  W.  S.  DALLAS,  F.L.S. 

The  Glow-worm   and   other  Phosphorescent  Animals.— By  G.  G.  CHTS- 

HOLM,    M.A.,    B.Sc. 

rv. 
Minute   Organisms.  — By  FREDERICK  P.  BALKWILL. 

No.  85. 

THE    ESSENTIAL   NATURE    OF   RELIGION.- By  J.  ALLANSON  PICTON, 
author  of  "The  Mystery  of  Matter,"  &c. 


CONTENTS. 

I— Religion  and  Freedom  of  Thought. 
II.— The  Evolution  of  Religion.— Fetichism. 
III. — Nature -Worship. 


IV.— Prophetic  Religions. 
V.— Religious  Dogma.— The  Future  of  Religion. 


THE   HUMBOLDT   PUBLISHING   CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


No.  86. 

THE     UNSEEN     UNIVERSE.—  By  WILLIAM  KINGDON  CLIFFORD,  F.E.S. 

TO   WHICH    IS    ADDED 

THE    PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE    PURE   SCIENCES.-By  WILLIAM  KING- 
DON  CLIFFORD,  F.E.S. 


CONTENTS. 


I.— Statement  of  the  Question. 
H—  Knowledge  and  Feeling. 


UI.—  The  Postulates  of  the  Science  of  Space. 
IV.—  The  Universal  Statements  of  Arithmetic. 


No.  87. 

THE     MORPHINE     HABIT    (MORPHINOMANIA).- Three  Lectures  by 
Professor  B.  BALL,  M.D.,  of  the  Paris  Faculty  of  Medicine. 


CONTENTS. 


I. —  Morphinomania.  —  General     Description. — 

Effects  of  the  Abuse  of  Morphine. 
II. —  Morphinomania.  —  Effects     of    Abstinence 
from  Morphine. 


HI. —  Morphinomania. — Diagnosis,  Prognosis,  and 
Treatment. 


To  which  is  appended  four  other  lectures,  viz., 

!•— The  Border-Land  of  Insanity.  I      ni.—  Prolonged    Dreams, 
n.— Cerebral   Dualism.  iv.— Insanity  in  Twins. 


SCIENCE  AND  CRIME,  AND   OTHER    ESSAYS.- By  ANDREW  WILSON, 
F.K.S.E. 


CONTENTS. 


I.—  The  Earliest  Known  Life-Relic. 
II. — About  Kangaroos. 
111.— On  Giants. 


IV.— The  Polity  af  a  Pond. 
V.— Skates  and  Rays. 
VI.— Leaves. 


THE     GENESIS    OF    SCIENCE. -By  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


TO   WHICH    IS    ADDED 


THE    COMING    OF  AGE    OF  "THE    ORIGIN    OF  SPECIES."-By 

Professor  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY,  F.E.S. 


NOTES  ON    EARTHQUAKES:  with  Thirteen  Miscellaneous  Essays. 

By  EICHARD  A.  PROCTOR. 


CONTENTS. 


I.— Notes  on  Earthquakes. 
II.— Photographing  Fifteen  Million  Stars. 
III. —  The  Story  of  the  Moon. 
IV.— The  Earth's  Past. 
V.— The  Story  of  the  Earth. 
VI.— The  Falls  of  Niagara. 
VII.— The  Unknowable. 


Vm.— Sun -Worship. 
IX. —  Herbert  Spencer  on  Priesthoods. 
X.— The  Star  of  Bethlehem  and  a  Bible  Comet. 
XI.— An  Historical  Puzzle. 
XH.— Galileo,  Darwin,  and  the  Pope. 
XIII.— Science   and  Politics. 
XIV.— Parents  and  Children. 


No.  91. 


Double  number,  3O  cents. 


THE     RISE     OF    UNIVERSITIES."  By  S.  S.  LAURIE,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  the 
Institutes  and  History  of  Education  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 


CONTENTS. 


1.— The  Romano-Hellenic  Schools  and  their 

Decline. 
II.— Influence  of  Christianity  on  Education,  and 

Rise  of  Christian  Schools, 
in.— Charlemagne  and  the  Ninth  Century. 
IV.— InnerWork  of  Christian  Schools  (450-1100). 
V. — Tenth  and  Eleventh  Centuries. 
VI  —The  Rise  of  Universities  (A.  D.  1100). 
VII.— The  First  Universities.— The  Schola  Saler- 

ndtana  and  the  University  of  Naples. 
Tin.— The  University  of  Bologna. 


IX.— The  University  of  Paris. 
X.— The  Constitution    of  Universities.  —  The 
terms  "Studium  Generale"  and  "Uni- 
versitas." 

XI.— Students,  their  Numbers  and  Discipline.— 
Privileges  of  Universities.— Faculties. 
XII.— Graduation. 
XIII.— Oxford  and  Cambridge. 
XTV.— The  University  of  Prague. 
XV.— University  Studies  and  the  Conditions  of 
Graduation. 


Published    semi-monthly.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers.  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR     SCIENCE. 


No.  92.  Double  number,  3O  cents. 

THE    FORMATION    OF   VEGETABLE    MOULD    THROUGH    THE 
Action    of    Earthworms,  with   Observations    on    their  Habits.— 

By  CHARLES  DARWIN,  L.L.D.,  F.B.S. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I. —  Habits  of  Worms. 

Chapter   II.— Habits  of  Worms  (continued). 

Chapter  III. —  The  Amount  of  Fine  Earth  brought 

up  by  Worms  to  the  surface. 
Chapter  TV. —  The  Part  which  Worms  have  played 

in  the  Burial  of  Ancient  Build- 


Chapter  V.— The  Action  of  Worms  in  the  Dena 
dation  of  the  Laud. 

Chapter  VI. — The  Denudation  of  the  Land  (con- 
tinued). 

Chapter  VII.— Conclusion. 


SCIENTIFIC     METHODS 

MOUNT  BLEYER,  M.D. 

I.— General  Review  of  the  Subject. 
II.— Death  by  Hanging. 
III.— Death  by  Electricity. 
IV. —  Death  by  Morphine  Injection. 


OF     CAPITAL 


Special  number,  1O   cents. 

PUNISHMENT.-By  J. 


CONTENTS. 


V. —  Death  by  Chloroform. 
VI.— Death  by  Prussic  Acid. 
VII— Objections  Considered. 


TO   WHICH    IS    ADDED 


INFLICTION    OF   THE    DEATH    PENALTY.- By  PARK  BENJAMIN. 


THE    FACTORS    OF  ORGANIC 


EVOLUTION.— BY  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


THE     DISEASES     OF    PERSONALITY.-By  TH.  RIBOT.- Translated  from 
the  French  by  J.  FITZGERALD,  M.A. 


Chapter     I. —  Introduction. 
Chapter   II.— Organic  Disturbance. 
Chapter  III.— Affective  Disturbance. 


CONTENTS. 

I    Chapter  IV.— Intellective  Disturbance. 
Chapter    V.— Dissolution   of  Personality. 
Chapter  VI.—  Conclusion. 


A    HALF-CENTURY    OF    SCI  ENCE.-  By  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLET,  F.E.S. 

TO    WHICH    IS    ADDED 

THE   PROGRESS  OF  SCIENCE  from  1836  to  1  886.-By  GRANT  ALLEN. 

No.  97. 

THE     PLEASURES 

F.R.S.,  D.C.L.,  LL.D. 


OF    LIFE.-By  Sir  JOHN  LUBBOCK,  Bart.,  M.P., 


Chapter     I.— The  Duty  of  Happiness. 
Chapter   II.— The  Happiness  of  Duty. 
Chapter  III. — A  Song  of  Books. 
Chapter  IV.— The  Choice  of  Books. 
Chapter    V.— The  Blessing  of  Friends. 


PAJIT  FIRST. 

CONTENTS. 

Chapter  VI.— The  Value  of  Time. 

Chapter  VII.— The  Pleasures  of  Travel. 
Chapter  VIII. — The  Pleasures  of  Home. 

Chapter  IX.— Science. 

Chapter  X. — Education. 


#%  PART  SECOND.— For  the  contents  of  Part  Second  see  No.  Ill  of  this  Catalogue. 
No.  98.  [Special  number,   1O   cents. 

COSMIC     EMOTION.-Aiso,  THE    TEACHING    OF    SCIENCE.-By 

WILLIAM  KINGDON  CLIFFORD,  F.E.S. 

No.  99. 

NATURE-STUDIES.  — Four  Essays  by  various  authors,  viz., 

I.—  Flame.,—  By  Prof.  F.  E.  EATON  LOWE. 
II.—  Birds    of   Passage.— By  Dr.  EGBERT  BROWN,  F.L.S. 
HI.— Snow.— By  GEORGE  G.  CHISHOLM,  F.E.G.S. 
IV.— Caves.— By  JAMES  DALLAS,  F.L.S. 

THE  HTJMBOLDT  PUBLISHING  CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place.  New  York. 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


No.  100. 

SCIENCE     AND      POETRY,    AND     OTHER      ESSAYS.-By 

ANDREW  WILSON,  F.R.S.E. 

I._5cjence     antj     Poetry.— A  Valedictory  Address  to  a  Literary  Society. 

ii.— The    Place,   Method,  and  Advantages   of   Biology  in    Ordi- 
nary Education. 

III.— Science -Culture      for     the      Masses.  — An  Opening    Lecture   at   a 
"People's  College." 

iv.— The    Law  of   Likeness,   and    its    Working. 

No.  101. 

AESTHETICS.- By  JAMES  SULLY,  M.A. 


CONTENTS. 


(A).—  Metaphysical  Problems. 
(B).— Scientific  Problems. 
(C).^- History  of  Systems. 

DREAMS.- By  JAMES  SULLY,  M.A. 


II.— German  Writers  on  Esthetics. 
HI.— French  Writers  on  Esthetics. 
IV.— Italian  and  Dutch  Writers  on  ^Esthetics. 
V.— English  Writers  on  Esthetics. 


The  Dream  as  Immediate  Objective  Experience. 
The  Dream  as  a  Communication  from  a  Super- 

natnral  Being. 
Modern  Theory  of  Dreams. 


CONTENTS. 

The  Sources  of  Dream-Materials. 
The  Order  of  Dream-Combinations. 
The  Objective  Reality  and  Intensity  of  Dream- 
Imaginations. 


TO   "WHICH    IS    ADDED 

ASSOCIATION    OF    IDEAS.— By  Prof.  GEOBGB  GROOM  ROBERTSON. 

No.  102. 

ULTIMATE     FINANCE.-A  True  Theory   of   Co-operation.- By 

WILLIAM   NELSON   BLACK. 

PART  FIRST. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I.— The  Origin  of  Social   Discontent. 

Chapter   II.— Definition  of  Capital. 

Chapter  III.— Men  not  Capitalists   because   not 

Creators  of  Capital. 

Chapter  IV.— Social  Results  Considered. 
Chapter  V.— The  Evolution  of  Finance. 
Chapter  VI.— Every  Man  his  own  Householder. 


Chapter   VII. —  Illustrations  from  Real  Life. 
Chapter  VIII.— Effects  of  Material  Growth. 
Chapter     IX— Objections  Answered. 
Chapter       X.— Some  Political  Reflections. 

Appendix — An  Act  for  the  Incorporation  ot 
Bond  Insurance  Companies. 


***  PART  SECOND.— For  the  contents  cf  Part  Second  see  No.  107  of  this  Catalogue. 
So.  103. 

1.  The   Coming  Slavery.— 2.  The  Sins  of  Legislators.— 3.  The  Greal 
Political    Superstition.—  Three  Essays  by  HERBERT  SPENCE-R. 

No.  104. 

TROPICAL     AFRICA.— By  HENRY   DRUMMOND,  LL.D.,  F.K.S.E.,  L.G.S. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I.— The  Water-Route  to  the  Heart  of 

Africa.  —  The    Rivers   Zambesi 

and  Shire. 
Chapter    II.— The  East  African  Lake  Country.— 

Lakes  Shirwa  and  Xyassa. 
Chapter  III.— The  Aspect  of  the  Heart  of  Africa. 

The  Country  and  its  People. 
Chapter  IV. — The  Heart-Disease  of  Africa. —  Its 

Pathology  and  Cure. 


Chapter  V.— Wanderings  on  the  Nyassa-Tangan- 
yika  Plateau.  —  A  Traveler's 
Diarv. 

Chapter     VI.— The  White  Ant.— A  Theory. 

Chapter  VIL—  Mimicry.— The  Ways  of  African 
Insects. 

Chapter  Vin.— A  Geological  Sketch. 

Chapter     IX.— A  Political  Warning. 

Chapter       X.— A  Meteorological  Note. 


Published    semi-montnly.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR    SCIENCE. 


No.  105. 

FREEDOM  IN  SCIENCE  AND  TEACHING.-  By  ERNST  HAECKEL, 
Professor  in  the  University  of  Jena.  —  With  a  Prefatory  Note  by  Professor 
THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY,  F.E.S. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I. — Development  and  Creation. 
Chapter   II.— Certain  Proofs  of  the  Doctrine  of 

Descent. 
Chapter  III.— The    Skull   Theory  and    the    Ape 

Theory. 
Chapter  IV— The    Cell-Soul    and    the    Cellular 

Psychology. 


Chapter      V.— The   Genetic   and   the   Dogmatic 
Methods  of  Teaching. 


Chapter 

Chapter   VII.— Ignorabimus  et  Restringamur. 


VI.— The    Doctrine    of    Descent    and 
Social  Democracy. 


No.  106. 


FORCE   AND    ENERGY.-A  Theory  of  Dynamics.-By  GRANT  ALLEN. 


Chapter  I. 

Chapter  II. 

Chapter  III. 

Chapter  IV. 

Chapter  V. 

Chapter  VI. 

Chapter  VII. 
Chapter  VIII. 

Chapter  IX. 


CONTENTS. 
PART  I.—  ABSTRACT  OR  ANALYTIC. 


-Power. 
-Force. 

— The  Species  of  Force. 
-The  Species  of  Energy. 
-The   Modes  of   Energy. 
-The  Kinds  of  Kinesis. 
-The  Persistence  of  Force. 
-The  Conservation  of  Energy. 


Chapter 
Chapter 


X.—  The  Indestructibility  of  Pqwer. 
XI.—  The     Mutual     Interference    of 

Forces. 

Chapter     XII.—  The  Suppression  of  Energies. 
Chapter   XIII.—  Liberating  Energies. 
Chapter   XIV.—  Miscellaneous  Illustrations. 
Chapter     XV.—  The  Dissipation  of  Energy. 
Chapter   XVI.—  The  Nature  of  Energy. 
Chapter  XVII.—  The  Nature  of  Motion. 


PART  II.  —  CONCRETE  OR  SYNTHETIC. 


Chapter  I.—  Dynamical  Formula  of  the  Uni- 

Chapter  II.—  The  Sidere:d   System.         [verse. 

Chapter  III.—  The  Solar  System. 

Chapter  IV.—  The  Earth. 


Chapter       V.—  Organic  Life. 
Chapter     VI.—  The  Vegetal  Organism. 
Chapter   VII.—  The  Animal  Organism.         [gies. 
Chapter  VTIL—  General  View  of  Mundane  Ener- 


No.  107. 

ULTIMATE        FINANCE.  -A    True    Theory 

WILLIAM   NELSON   BLACK. 

PART    SECOND. 


of    Wealth.  -By 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I.— The  Origin  of  Property. 

Chapter   II.— The  Evolution  of  Wealth. 

Chapter  III. — Banking,  and  its  Relation  to  Accu- 
mulation. 

Chapter  IV. —  The  Relation  of  Insurance  to  Accu- 
mulation. 


Chapter  V.— The  Creative  and  Benevolent  Feat- 
ures of  Fortune-Hunting. 

Chapter  VI.— Wealth  an  Enforced  Contributor 
to  the  Public  Welfare. 

Chapter  VII.— The  Impairment  and  Destruction 
of  Property. 


«%  PART  FIRST.— For  the  contents  of  Part  First  see  No.  102  of  this  Catalogue. 

No.  108  and  No.  109.  No.  108  is  a  double  number,  30  cents. 

ENGLISH:    PAST    AND     PRESENT.- A  Series  of  Eight  Lectures  by 
EICHARD    CHENEVIX    TRENCH,  D.D.,  Archbishop  of  Dublin. 


CONTENTS. 


Lecture     I.— The   English  Vocabulary. 
Lecture   II.— English  as  it  might    have  been. 
Lecture  III.— Gains  of  the  English  Language. 
Lecture  IV.— Gains  of  the  English  Language 
(continued). 

Lecture    V. — Diminutions  of  the  English  Lan- 
guage. 


Lecture  VI. —  Diminutions  of  the  English  Lan- 
guage (continued). 

Lecture  VII.— Changes  in  the  Meaning  of  English 
Words. 

Lecture  VIII.— Changes  in  the  Spelling  of  English 
Words. 

Index  of  Subjects.— Index  of  Words  and  Phrases. 


THE   HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING  CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 


THE    HUMBOLDT    LIBRARY 


No.  110.  Double  number,  30  cents. 

THE    STORY   OF   CREATION.-A  Plain  Account  of  Evolution. 

By  EDWARD  CLODD,  author  of  "The  Childhood  of  the  World,"  "The  Childhood 
of  Eeligions,"  "  The  Birth  and  Growth  of  Myths,"  &c.— Eighty  Illustrations. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter     I.— THE  UNIVERSE:  ITS  CONTENTS. 

1.  Matter.  a.  Force. 

2.  Power.  b.  Energy. 

Chapter   II.— DISTRIBUTION    OP    MATTER    IN 
SPACE. 

Chapter  III. — THE  SUN  AND  PLANETS. 
The  Earth:    General  Features. 

Chapter  IV.— THE  PAST  LIFE-HISTORY  OP  THE 

EARTH. 
Character  and  Contents  of  Rocks  of 

1.  Primary  Epoch.  3.  Tertiary  Epoch. 

2.  Secondary  Epoch.         4.  Quaternary  Epoch. 

Chapter     V. — PRESENT  LIFE-FORMS. 
Physical  Constituents  and  Unity. 

A.  Plants. 

1.  Flowerless.  2.  Flowering. 

B.  Animals. 

1.  Protozoa.  4.  Annulosa. 

2.  Coelenterata.  5.  Mollusca. 

3.  Echinodermata.  6.  Vertebrata. 

Chapter     VI. —  THE   UNIVERSE:    MODE    OP   ITS 
BECOMING  AND  GROWTH. 

1.  Inorganic  Evolution.        3.  Evolution    of    the 

2.  Evolution  of  the  So-  Earth. 

lar  System. 

Chapter  VII.— THE  ORIGIN  OP  LIFE. 
Time.— Place.— Mode. 


Chapter  VIII.—  THE  ORIGIN  OP  LIFE-FORMS. 
Priority  of   Plant  or  Animal. 
Cell-Structure  and  Development. 

Chapter     IX.  —  THE  ORIGIN  OP  SPECIES. 
Argument  : 

1.  No  two  individuals  of  the  same  species  are  alike. 

Each  tends  to  vary. 

2.  Variations  are  transmitted,  and  therefore  tend 

to  become  permanent. 

3.  Man  takes  advantage  of  these  transmitted  un- 

likenesses  to  produce  new  varieties  of  plants 
and  animals. 

4.  More  organisms  are  born  than  survive. 

5.  The  result  is  obvious  :  a  ceaseless  struggle  for 

place  and  food. 

6.  Natural  selection  tends  to  maintain  the  balance 

between  living  things  and  their  surround- 

oundin 

living  things  must  adap 
or  perish. 

Chapter    X.—  PROOFS  OF  THE  DERIVATION  OF 
SPECIES. 

1.  Embryology.  4.  Succession  in  Time. 

2.  Morphology.  5.  Distribution  in  Space. 

3.  Classification.  Objections. 

Chapter    XI.—  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION. 

1.  Evolution  of  Mind.         4.  Evolution  of  Morals. 

2.  Evolution  of  Society.     5.  Evolution   of  Theol- 

3.  Evolution  of  Language,  ogy. 

Arts,  and  Science.        Summary. 


ings.  These  surroundings  change  ;  therefore 
apt  themselves  thereto, 


No.  111. 

THE     PLEASURES     OF     LIFE.-By  Sir  JOHN    LUBBOCK,  Bart.,  M.P., 
F.E.S.,   D.C.L.,   LL.D. 

PART    SECOND. 


Chapter      I.— Ambition. 
Chapter     II.— Wealth. 
Chapter  HI.— Health. 
Chapter   IV.— Love. 
Chapter     V.— Art. 
Chapter   VL—  Poetry. 
Chapter  VII— Music. 


CONTENTS. 

Chapter  VIII.— The  Beauties  of  Nature. 
Chapter     IX. -The  Troubles  of  Life. 
Chapter       X.— Labor  and  Rest. 
Chapter     XI.— Religion. 
Chapter    XII. —  The  Hope  of  Progress. 
Chapter  XIII.— The  Destiny  of  Man. 


»*»  PART  FIRST.— For  the  contents  of  Part  First  see  No.  97  of  this  Catalogue. 

No.  112. 

PSYCHOLOGY    OF    ATTENTION.- By  TH.  EIBOT.- Translated   from  the 
French  by  J.  FITZGERALD,  M.A. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  I.— Purpose  of  this  treatise:  study  of 
the  mechanism  of  Attention. — 
Attention  defined. 

Chapter  II. — Spontaneous  or  Natural  Attention. 
Its  cause  always  affective  states. 
Its  physical  manifestations. — 
Attention  simply  the  subjective 
side  of  the  manifestations  that 
express  it.  —  Origin  of  Sponta- 
neous Attention. 

Chapter  HI.— Voluntary  or  Artificial  Attention. 
How  it  is  produced.— The  three 
principal  periods  of  its  genesis:  | 


action  of  simple  feelings,  complex 
feelings,  and  habits. — Mechanism 
of  Voluntary  Attention. — Atten- 
tion acts  only  upon  the  muscles 
and  through  the  muscles. —  The 
feeling  of  effort. 

Chapter  IV.— Morbid  States  of  Attention.— Dis- 
traction.— Hypertrophy  of  Atten- 
tion. —  Atrophy  of  Attention.— 
Attention  in  idiots. 

Chapter  V. — Conclusion. —  Attention  dependent 
on  Affective  States.  —  Physical 
Condition  of  Attention. 


Published    semi-monthly.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR    SCIENCE. 


No.  113.  Double  number,  3O  cents. 

HYPNOTISM:    ITS    HISTORY  AND    PRESENT   DEVELOPMENT. 

By  FREDRIK  BJORXSTROM,  M.D.,  Head  Physician  of  the  Stockholm  Hospital, 
Professor  of  Psychiatry,  late  Eoyal  Swedish  Medical  Councillor.— Authorized 
Translation  from  the  Second  Swedish  Edition,  by  Baron  NILS  POSSE,  M.G., 
Director  of  the  Boston  School  of  Gymnastics. 


CONTENTS. 


I.— Historical  Retrospect. 
11.— Definition  of  Hypnotism.— Susceptibility  to 

Hypnotism. 

III.— Means  or  Methods  of  Hypnotizing. 
IV. —  Stages  or  Degrees  of  Hypnotism. 
V.— Unilateral  Hypnotism. 
VI.— Physical  Effects  of  Hypnotism. 


VII.— Psychical  Effects  of  Hypnotism. 
VIII.— Suggestion. 

IX.— Hypnotism  as  a  Remedial  Agent. 
X. —  Hypnotism  as  a  Means  of  Education, 

as  a  Moral  Remedy. 
XI. —  Hypnotism  and  the  Law. 
XII. —  Misuses  and  Dangers  of  Hypnotism. 
Bibliography  of  Hypnotism. 


No.  114.  Double  number,  3O  cents. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND    AGNOSTICISM.-A  Controversy  .-Consisting 

of  papers  contributed  to  The  Nineteenth  Century  by  HENRY  WACE,  D.D.,  Prof. 
THOMAS  H.  HUXLEY,  THE  BISHOP  OF  PETERBOROUGH,  W.  H.  MALLOCK,  Mrs. 
HUMPHRY  WARD. 


I.  — On  Agnosticism.  —  By  HENRY  WACE, 
D.D.,  Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's  Cathe- 
dral ;  Principal  of  King's  College,  London. 

II.— Agnosticism By  Professor  THOMAS  H. 

HUXLEY. 
III.— Agnosticism.— A  Reply  to  Prof.  HUXLEY. 

By  HENRY  WACE,  D.D. 
IV.— Agnosticism — By  W.  C.  MAGEE,  D.D., 

Bishop  of  Peterborough. 
V.— Agnosticism.  —  A  Rejoinder.  —  By   Prof. 

THOMAS  H.  HUXLEY. 

VI.— Christianity  and  Agnosticism — By 
HENRY  WACE,  D.D. 


CONTENTS. 
VII.- 


-An  Explanation  to  Prof.  Huxley.— 

By  W.  C.  MAGEE,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Peter- 
borough. 

-  The  Value  of  Witness  to  the  Mirac- 

ulous.—By.  Prof.  THOMAS  H.  HUXLEY. 

-Agnosticism    and  Christianity — By 

Prof.  THOMAS  H.  HUXLEY. 

-"Cowardly    Agnosticism."— A  Word 
with  Prof.  HUXLEY. -By  W.H.MALLOCK. 

-  The    New    Reformation.  —  By    Mrs. 

HUMPHRY  WARD. 


No.  115  and  No.  116. 


Two  double  numbers,  3O  cents  each. 


DARWINISM:  AN  EXPOSITION  OF  THE  THEORY  OF  NATURAL 
SELECTION,  with  some  of  its  applications.  — By  ALFRED  RUSSEL. 
WALLACE,  LL.D.,  P.L.S.,  &c.— With  Portrait  of  the  Author,  Colored  Map,  and 
numerous  illustrations. 


CONTESTS. 


Chapter  I.— What  are  "Species,"  and  what  is 
meant  by  their  "Origin." 

Chapter     II.— The  Struggle  for  Existence. 

Chapter  HI.— The  Variability  of  Species  in  a 
State  of  Nature. 

Chapter  IV.— Variation  of  Domesticated  Animals 
and  Cultivated  Plants. 

Chapter  V.— Natural  Selection  by  Variation  and 
Survival  of  the  Fittest. 

Chapter   VI.— Difficulties  and  Objections. 

Chapter  VII— On  the  Infertility  of  Crosses  be- 
tween Distinct  Species,  and  the 
usual  Sterility  of  their  Hybrid 
Offspring. 


Chapter  VIII.— The  Origin  and  Uses  of  Color  in 
Animals. 

Chapter     IX. — Warning  Coloration  and  Mimicry. 

Chapter  X.—  Colors  and  Ornaments  character- 
istic of  Sex. 

Chapter  XI.— The  Special  Colors  of  Plants.— 
Their  Origin  and  Purpose. 

Chapter  XII.— The  Geographical  Distribution  of 
Organisms. 

Chapter  XIII.— The  Geological  Evidences  of  Evo- 

Chapter  XTV.— Fundamental  Problems  in  Rela- 
tion to  Variation  and  Heredity. 
Chapter    XV.— Darwinism  applied  to  Man. 

same  general  lines  as  wer» 


The  present  work  treats  the  problem  of  the  Origin  of  Species  on  the  .-,....,,  *.~« 

adopted  by  Darwin:  but  from  the  standpoint  reached  after  nearly  thirty  years  of  discussion,  with  an 
abundance  of  new  facts  and  the  advocacy  of  many  new  or  old  theories. 

While  not  attempting  to  deal,  even  in  outline,  with  the  vast  subject  of  evolution  in  general,  an 
endeavor  has  been  made  to  give  such  an  account  of  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection  as  may  enable  any 
intelligent  reader  to  obtain  a  clear  conception  of  Darwin's  work,  and  to  understand  something  of  the 
power  and  range  of  his  great  principle.— Extract  from  the  Preface. 

THE   HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING  CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


jjo    H7_  [Double  number,  3O   ceuts. 

MODERN  SCIENCE  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT.-A  Clear  and 
Concise  View  of  the  Principal  Results  of  Modern  Science, 
and  of  the  Revolution  which  they  have  effected  in  Modern 
Thought.- By  S.  LAIKG. 

PART   I. 
MODEEN     SCIENCE. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  I. —  Space. 

Primitive  Idea*— Natural  Standards-Dimensions  of  the 
Earth— Of  Sun  and  Solar  System— Distance  of  Fixed  Stars— 
Their  Order  and  Size— Nebulae  and  Other  Universes— The 
Telescope  and  the  Infinitely  Great^Tbe  Microscope  and  the 
Infinitely  Small— Uniformity  of  Law— Law  of  Gravity— Acts 
through  all  Space-Double  Stars,  Comets,  and  Meteors— Has 
acted  through  all  time. 

Chapter  II.— Time. 

Evidence  of  Geology-Stratification-Denudation-Strata 
identified  by  Superposition-- i;>  fossils-Geological  Record 
shown  by  Upturned  Strata— General  Kesult— Palaeozoic  and 
Primary  Periods  —  Secondary- Tertiary- Time  required- 
Coal  Formation— Chalk— Elevations  and  Depressions  of  Land 
-Internal  Heat  of  the  Earth-Earthquakes  and  Volcanoes- 
Changes  of  Fauna  and  Flora-Astronomical  Time-Tides  and 
the  Moon— Sun's  Radiation— Earth's  Cooling— Geology  and 
Astronomy— Bearings  on  Modern  Thought 
Chapter  III.—  Matter. 


11 — Conservation 


Chapter  IV.— Life. 


tion— Development  of 


from  Primitive  Cells-Super- 


natural Theory— Zoological  Provinces— Separate  Creatio 
Law  or  Miracle— Darwinian  Theory- Struggle  for  Life— Sur- 
vival of  the  Fittest^Development  and  Design-The  Hand- 
Proof  required  to  establish  Darwin's  Theory  as  a  Law— Species 
-HybridV-Man  subject  to  Law. 


Chapter  V.— Antiquity  of  Man. 

elief  in  Man's  Recent  Origin— Boucher  de  Perthcs'  Dis- 
ries— Confirmed  by  Prestwicli— Nature  of  Implements— 


Bone-caves—Kent's  Cavern— Victoria,Gower,and  other  Caves 
—Caves  of  France  and  Belgium— Ages  of  Cave  Bear,  Mam- 
er— Artistic  Race- Dra    ' 


?rgence  > 

Land-Tertiary    Man-Eocene    Period-Miocene-Evidence 
for  Pliocene  and  Miocene  Man-Conclusions  as  to  Antiquity. 


Chapter  VI. —  Man's  Place  in  Nature. 

Origin  of  Man  from  an  Egg-Like  other  Mammals-Devel- 
opment of  the  Embryo -Backbone-Eye  and  other  Organs  of 
Sense— Fish,  Reptile,  and  Mammalian  Stages— Comparison 
with  Apes  and  Monkeys— Germs  of  Human  Faculties  in  An- 
imals—The Dog— Insects— Helplessness  of  Human  Infant- 
Instinct— Heredity  and  Evolution— The  Missing  Link— Races 
of  Men— Leading  Types  and  Varieties— Common  Origin  Dis- 
tant^Language— How  Formed— Grammar— Chinese,  Aryan, 
nitic.  &c. — Conclusions  from  Language — Evolution  and 


Antiquity— Religions  of  Savage  Races- 
Anthropomorphic  Deities-Traces  in 
lithic  Times-Development  by  Evolut 
Tools  and  Weapons— Fire— Flint  Imple 


-Traces  in  Neolithic  and 

"  Evolution— Primitive  Arts- 
Tools  and  Weapons— Fire— Flint  I  mplements— Progress  from 
Paleolithic  to  Neolithic  Times-Domestic  Animals-Clothing 
—Ornaments— Conclusion,  Man  a  Product  of  Evolution. 


No.  118.  [Single  number,  15   cents. 

MODERN  SCIENCE  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT.-With  a  Sup- 
plemental Chapter  on  Gladstone's  "Dawn  of  Creation"  and 
"Proem  to  Genesis,"  and  on  Drummond's  "Natural  Law  in 
the  Spiritual  World."— By  s.  LAING. 

PART   II. 
MODERN     THOUGHT. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  VII.— Modern  Thought. 
Lines  from  Te 


Tennyson— The  Gospel  of  Modern  Thought— 
plitied  by  Carlyle,  Renan,  and  George  Eliot- 
ilng  universal— Attitude  of  Orthodox  Writers— 
•st  Cause  unknowable— New  Philosophies 
rbert  Spencer  and  Agnosticion— Comte 
and  Positivism  —  Pessimism  —  Mormonism  —  Spiritualism  — 
Dreams  and  Visions— Somnambulism— Mesmerism— Great 
Modern  Thinkers— Carlyle— Hero-worship. 

Chapter  VIII.— Miracles. 

Origin  of  Belief  in  the  Supernatural-Thunder-Belief  in 
Miracles  formerly  Universal-St  Paul's  Testimony-Now  In- 
credible—Christian Miracles— Apparent  Miracles— Real  Mir- 
jfcles-Absurd  Miracles  Worthy  Slin.c  les-The Resurrection 
and  Ascension— Nature  of  Evidence  required— Inspiration- 
Prophecy— Direct  Evidence— St.  Paul— The  Gospels— What 
is  Known  of  Them— The  Synoptic  Gospels— Resemblances 
and  Differences— Their  Origin— Papias-Gospel  of  St.  John- 
Evidence  rests  on  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke- What  each 
states— Compared  with  one  another  and  with  St  John — 
Hopelessly  Contradictory— Miracle  of  the  Ascension— Silence 
of  Mark — Probable  Early  Date  of  Gospels — But  not  in  their 
Present  Form. 

SUPPLEMENTAL  CHAPTER. —  Glndstone's  "Daw 
mond's  "Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World." 


Chapter  LX.— Christianity  Without  Miracles. 

Practical  and  Theoretical  Christianity  —  Example  and 
Teaching  of  Christ-Christian  Dogma— Moral  Objections— In- 
consistent with  Facts— Must  be  accepted  as  Parables— Fall 
and  Redemption— Old  Creeds  must  be  Transformed  or  Di»— 
Mohammedanism-Decay  of  Faith-Balance  of  Advantages  - 
Religious  Wars  and  Persecutions— Intolerance— Sacrifice- 
Prayer— Absence  of  Theology  in  Synoptic-  Gospels— Opposite 
Pole  to  Christianity-Courage  and  Self-reliance— Belief  in 
God  and  a  Future  Life-Based  Mainly  on  Christianity-Sci- 
ence gives  no  Answer— Nor  Metaphysics— So-called  Institu- 
tions-Development of  Idea  of  God-Best  Proof  afforded  by 
Christianity— Evolution  is  Transforming  it— Reconciliation 
of  Religion  and  Science. 

Chapter  X.— Practical  Life. 

ght  is  Right -Self-rev«rence- Courage- 
:e  of  Press— Respect    for  Women— 


tion— Stoicism— Conclusion, 
of  Creation"  and  "Proem  to  Genesis."— Drum- 


Published    seml-montniy.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR     SCIENCE. 


No.  119. 

THE    ELECTRIC    LIGHT.-  How  the  Electric  Current  is  Produced. 
How  the  Electric  Current  is  made  to  yield  the  Electric  Light. 

By  GKRALD    MOLLOY,   D.D.,   D.Sc.,   Fellow  of   the   Boyal    University.  —  With 
numerous    illustrations. 

CONTENTS. 

I.—  How  the  Electric  Current  is  Produced. 

First  Discovery  of  Induced  Currents—  Faraday's  Exper- 

iments described  and  repeated—  First  machines  founded  on 

Faraday's  discovery  —  Pixii.  Saxton,  Clarke  —  New  form  of 

Armature  invented  by  Siemens-Machines  of  the  Alliance 

' 


Gramme's  machine  —  The  principle  of  its  action  explain 
Details  of  construction-The  Volta  Prize  awarded  to  Gra 
for  his  invention—  The  machine  of  Siemens,  how  it  differs 
from  that  of  Gramme—  Most  other  machines  constructed  on 
one  or  other  of  these  two  types  —  The  dynamo  does  not  create 
energy,  but  convert*  mechanical  energy  into  electrical  energy. 


II.— How  the  Electric  Current  is  made  to  yield 

the  Electric  Light. 

Simplest  form  of  Electric  Light— Principle  of  the  Electric 
Lifbt^Sir  Humphry  Davy's  experiment-Two  types  of  Elec- 
tric Light-The  Arc  Ligbt-Duboscq's  Lamp- New  forma  of 
Arc  Lamp-TheJablochkoft'Candle-The  Incandescent  Light 
-Platinum  Spiral-Why  Carbon  is  preferred  to  Platinum- 
A  perfect  vacuum — Elements  of  Incandescent  Lamp— Prep- 


aration of  the  filament—  Edison's 

filament- 
—  Light  without  heat—  The  A 


Carbonization  of  the  fil 


Lamp-Prep- 

s  process — Swan's  process — 
t— Exhaustion  of  the  gfass  globe 


:  Light  and  the  Incandescent 

Light  compared— Comparison  witli  other  kinds  of  light -How 
far  the  Electric  Light  Is  i 


TO   WHICH    IS    ADDED 

THE    STORING    OF   ELECTRICAL   ENERGY.-The    Recent 
Progress    and    Development    of   the    Storage    Battery.— By  the 

same   author. —  With  numerous    illustrations. 


CONTENTS. 


tip*- 


ment  of  the  principle— Eitter's  secondary  pile— Grov 
battery-Experiments  of  Gaston  Plante-Tbe  Plante 
ary  cell — Faure's  improvement — What  a  storage  batt 
do— Practical  illustrations— Convenience  of  the  rtora 
tery  for  the  production  of  the  electric  light— The  storage  bat- 
tery as  a  motive  power— Application  of  the  storage  battery  t" 
tram-cars  and  private  carriages— The  storage  battery  on  its 


A  "  marvelous  box  of  electricity"— What  is  meant  by  the 
storing  of  energy — Examples  of  energy  stored  up — A  sus- 
pended weight — A  watchspring  wound  up — A  stretched  cross- 
bow—A flywheel  -KniTtfy  stored  up  in  clouds  and  rivers- 
Energy  stored  up  in  a  coal-mine — Energy  stored  up  in  sep- 
arated gases— Storing  of  electrical  energy  not  a  new  idea- 
Energy  stored  up  in  a  Leyden  jar-In  a  thunder-cloud-In  a 
voltaic  battery— Principle  of  the  storage  battery-— Experiment 
showing  production  of  secondary  current — Gradual  develop- 

RECENT    PROGRESS    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    THE    STORAGE    BATTERY., 
Unexpected  difficulties-Modifications  of  the  Faure  cell-     I     plates-Newest  form  of  cell-Buckling  of  the  plates-The 

"-"-    al  resistance  diminished-New  i !e  of  preparing  the      ' 

-Ai      " 

-111! 

No.  120. 

THE    MODERN    THEORY   OF   HEAT,  as   Illustrated   by  the   Phe- 
nomena  of  the    Latent    Heat   of   Liquids    and   of  Vapors.— By 

GERALD    MOLLOY,   D.D.,  D.Sc.,  Fellow  of   the    Eoyal    University.— With  nu- 
merous   illustrations. 


L—  The  Latent  Heat  of  Liquids. 


CONTENTS. 


Modern  theory  of  heat—  Heat  a  form  of  Energy  —  Familiar 
illustrations  —  Count    Kumford's    experiment  —  Argument 


-Heat  produced  by  expenditure 
t  Heat— Black's  experiments— 


Heat  disappears  when  ice  is  melted—  Explanation  of  this  fact 


ly  of  Nature. 

TO    WHICH 


II.— The  Latent  Heat  of  Vapors. 

Heat  expended  when  water  is  boiled— This  fact  coniidered 
i  the  light  of  the  modern  theory— Method  of  measuring  the 
•  1-Heat  developed  when  steam  is 
[lustration— Heating  of  building* 
pended  in  evaporation— Various  illustra- 
tions—Cold produced  by  evaporation  of  ether— Water  frozen 
by  evaporation  — Leslie's  experiment — Carre 's  apparatus— Pro- 
duction of  solid  carbonic  acid-Freezing  of  mercury-Latent 
Heat  of  clouds—  Effect  in  the  economy  of  Nature— Summary- 


quantity  of  heat  so  expended— Heat  developed 
condenJed-Bxperimenui  illustration-Heath 
m— Heat  ei 


THE    SUN    AS    A    STOREHOUSE    OF    ENERGY.- Immensity  of 
the  Sun's   Energy.— Source  of  the  Sun's   Energy.— By  the  same 

author. —  With   numerous    illustrations. 


I.— Immensity  of  the  Sun's  Energy. 
Nearly  all  the  energy  available  to  man  is  derived  from  the 

_in  —  Water-jNiwer — Wir 


CONTENTS. 


r  —  Steam-power  —  Mu 


rind-Dowel 

er-Tidal  | 

of  the  tidrs  derived  from  rotation  of  the  ._ 
Only  a  small  fraction  of  the  energy  which  the  earth  derives 
from  the  sun  is  used  by  man -And  the  energy  which  the 
earth  receives  is  only  a  small  fraction  of  what  the  sun  sends 

forth— Measurement  of  energy  sent  out  by  the  sun  Kxper- 
iments  of  I'ouiUet  and  Herschel  —  Apparatus  employed  — 
Method  of  adjustment— Observations  made— Corrections- 
Practical  estimate  of  the  energy  sent  out  by  the  sun-What 
n  wonderful  storehouse  of  energy  the  suu  must  be— How  is 


II. —  Source  of  the  Sun's  Energy. 

The  aun  is  not  a  great  fire— Such  a  fire  would  be  choked  by 
the  products  of  conibustion-Aiid  besides  it  would  be  burned 
out  in  course  of  time—  Difference  between  incandescence  and 
combustion— Practical  illustrations— How  the  aun  is  main- 
tained in  a  state  of  incandescence— Theory  of  Sir  William 
Thomson— Meteors  or  Falling  Stars-  Heat  developed  when 
such  bodies  fall  into  the  sun-  Illustration  from  a  bullet  strik- 
ing a  target— This  theory  now  abandoned— Theory  of  Helm- 
lioltz— Heat  of  the  sun  produced  tiv  compression  of  his  mass- 
Heat  lost  by  radiation  is  restored  by  further  compretdon— 
This  theory  probable  and  sufficient-Bearing  of  the  Nebular 
Hvpotln -.  i  ;m— Summary. 


THE   HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING   CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


UTILITARIANISM.— By  JOHN   STUART  MILL,  auth«r  of  "A  System  of  Logic," 
'.'Principles  of  Political  Economy,"  "On  Liberty,"  &c. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter      I. —  General  Remarks. 
Chapter    II.— What  Utilitarianism  is. 
Chapter  III.—  Of  the  Ultimate  Sanction 
Principle  of  Utility. 


Chapter  IV.—  Of  what  sort  of  Proof  the  Principle 
of  Utility  is  susceptible. 

Chapter  V.—  Of  the  Connection  between  Justice 
and  Utility. 


No.  122  and  No.  123. 


[No.  122  is  a  double  number,  3O  cents. 


UPON   THE    ORIGIN    OF  ALPINE   AND    ITALIAN    LAKES;    AND 

UPON  GLACIAL  EROSION.— By  Sir  A.  C.  RAMSAY,  F.R.S.,  President 
of  the  Geological  Society.— JOHN  BALL,  M.R.I.A.,  F.L.S.,  &c.— Sir  RODERICK  I. 
MURCHISON,  F.R.S.,  D.C.L.,  President  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society.— 
Prof.  B.  STUDER,  of  Berne.— Prof.  A.  FAVRE,  of  Geneva.— EDWARD  WHYMPER. — 
With  an  Introduction  and  Notes  upon  the  Origin  and  History  of  the  Great  Lakes 
of  North  America,  by  Prof.  J.  W.  SPENCER,  State  Geologist  of  Georgia. 


CONTENTS. 


Introduction,  with  Notes  upon  the  Origin  and 
History  of  the  Great  Lakes  of  North  America.— 
By  J.  W.  SPENCER,  Ph.D..  F.G.S.,  State  Geologist 
of  Georgia 

I.— On  the  Glacial  Origin  of  Certain  Lakes  in 
Switzerland,  the  Black  Forest,  Great  Britain, 
Sweden.  North  America,  and  Elsewhere. —  By  Sir 
A.  C.  RAMSAY,  F.R.S.,  President  of  the  Geological 
Society. 

II.— On  the  Formation  of  Alpine  Valleys  and 
Alpine  Lakes.  —  By  JOHN  BALL,  M.R.I.  A., 
F.L.S.,  &c. 

III.— Glaciers  of  the  Himalayan  Mountains  and 
New  Zealand  compared  with  those  of  Europe. — 
On  the  Powers  of  Glaciers  in  Modifying  the  Sur- 


face of  the  Earth,  and  in  the  agency  of  Floating 
Icebergs.  —  By  Sir  RODERICK  I.  MURCHISON, 
K.C.B.,  D.C.L.,  F.R.S.,  &c. 

IV.— On  the  Origin  of  the  Swiss  Lakes.— By 
Prof.  B.  STUDER,  of  Berne. 

V.— On  the  Origin  of  the  Alpine  Lakes  and 
Valleys.  A  letter  addressed  to  Sir  RODERICK  I. 
MURCHISON,  K.C.B.,  D.C.L.,  &c.,  by  M.  ALPHONSE 
FAVRE,  Professor  of  Geology  in  the  Academy  of 
Geneva,  author  of  the  Geological  Map  of  Savoy. 

VI.— The  Ancient  Glaciers  of  Aosta.— By  ED- 
WARD WHYMPER. 

VII.— Glacial  Erosion  in  Norway  and  in  High 
Latitudes.— By  Professor  J.  W.  SPENCER,  Ph.D., 
F.G.S.,  State  Geologist  of  Georgia. 


No.  124. 

THE    QUINTESSENCE    OF   SOCIALISM.- By  Dr.  A. 

lated  from  the  eighth  German  edition  under  the  supervision  of  BERNARD  BOSAN- 
QUET.  M.A.,  formerly  Fellow  of  University  College,  Oxford. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  I.— FIRST  OUTLINES  OF  THE   FUNDA- 
MENTAL IDEA  OF  SOCIALISM. 

Chapter  II.—  THE  MEANS  OF  AGITATION. 
The  Socialistic  criticism  of  capital.— Profit  as 
•'appropriation  of  surplus  value." — Property  as 
theft.— False  interpretations  of  these  allegations 
refuted. —  Ultimate  buying-out  of  the  modern 
plutocrats. 

Chapter  III.  — PROPOSED  TRANSFORMATION  OF 
THE  SEVERAL  FUNDAMENTAL  INSTITUTIONS  OF 
MODERN  NATIONAL  ECONOMY. 
Determination  of  demand.— Freedom  of  demand. 
Organization  of  labor  and  capital  into  a  system  of 
collective  production.— False  interpretations  re- 
futed.—  The  doctrine  of  value  as  depending  on 
sheer  labor-cost  useless  for  a  practical  organiza- 
tion of  labor  and  capital. 

Chapter  IV.  —  TRANSFORMATION   OF  INSTITU- 
TIONS (continued). 

Abolition  of  all  loan-capital,  of  credit,  of  lease, 
of  hire,  and  of  the  exchange. 

Chapter  V.  —  TRANSFORMATION   OF  INSTITU- 
TIONS (continued). 
Abolition  of  trade  in  "commodities,"  and  of  the 


market  for  them,  and  of  the  system  of  advertise- 
ment and  of  display  of  wares. 

Chapter  VI.  —  TRANSFORMATION  OF  INSTITU- 
TIONS (continued.) 

Abolition  of  metallic  money  as  the  medium  of 
exchange,  and  its  replacement  as  "standard  of 
value"  by  units  of  ''social  labor-time"  ("labor- 
money").  The  value-estimate  of  the  Socialistic 
State  compared  with  the  present  market-price. 

Chapter  VTL—  TRANSFORMATION  OF  INSTITU- 
TIONS (continued.) 

The  Socialistic  determination  of  value  in  ex- 
change, and  freedom  of  labor  in  the  Socialistic 
State. 

Chapter  VTIL—  TRANSFORMATION  OF  INSTITU- 
TIONS (continued). 

Income,  and  the  use  of  income  in  the  formation 
of  property,  and  in  consumption. —  Private  prop- 
erty and  the  law  affecting  it. —  Family  life  and 
marriage.— Savings-banks  and  insurance  system. 
Expenditure  on  charitable,humanitarian,religious, 
and  other  ideal  purposes. 

Chapter  IX.—  CONCLUSION. 
Summary  of  criticisms. 


Published    semi-monthly.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR     SCIENCE. 


No.  135. 

DARWINISM     AND     POLITICS.-By  DAVID  G.  RITCHIE,  M.A.,  Fellow  and 
Tutor  of  Jesus  College,  Oxford. 


CONTENTS. 


"The  Struggle  for  Existence  "in  Mai  thus  and 
Darwin. —  How  the  idea  is  applied  to  politics. —  Is 
the  struggle  "beneficent"? 

The  Evolution  Theory  as  applied  to  Human  So- 
ciety by  Darwin,  Strauss,  Spencer,  Maine,  Clodd. 

Ambiguity  of  the  phrase  "Survival  of  the  Fit- 
test."—Complexity  of  Social  Evolution. 


Does  the  Doctrine  of  Heredity  support  Aristoc- 
racy? 

Does  the  Evolution  Theory  justify  Laissez  faire  ? 
Struggle  between  ideas  for  survival. — Conscious- 
ness as  a  factor  in  Evolution. — Testimony  of  Prof. 

TO    WHICH    IS    ADDED 

ADMINISTRATIVE    NIHILISM.- By  Prof.  THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY,  F.R.S 


Huxley  and  Strauss.— Ambiguity  of  "Nature."— 
Conscious  ' '  Variations. ' ' 

Why  fix  ideas  in  institutions  ?  — Custom :  its  use 
and  abuse.— Institutions  and  "the  social  factor" 
generally  are  neglected  in  the  popular  acceptation 
of  the  doctrine  of  Heredity.— Mr.  Gallon's  views 
considered. —  Darwin's  own  opinion. 


Are  the  Biological  Formulae  adequate  to  express 
Social  Evolution  ? 

Applications— (1)  The  Labor  Question.— (2)  The 
Position  of  Women. — (3)  The  Population  Question. 


No.  126  and  No.  127.  [Two  double  numbers,  3O  cents  each. 

PHYSIOGNOMY  AND  EXPRESSION.- By  PAOLO  MANTEGAZZA,  Senator; 
Director  of  the  National  Museum  of  Anthropology,  Florence ;  President  of  the 
Italian  Society  of  Anthropology. 

CONTENTS. 

PART  I.— THE  HUMAN  COUNTENANCE. 


Chapter  I.— Historical  Sketch  of  the  Science 
of  Physiognomy  and  of  Human 
Expression. 

Chapter    II.— The  Human  Face. 

Chapter  III.—  The  Features  of  the  Human  Face. 


Chapter  IV.— The  Hair  and  the  Beard.— Moles. 
Wrinkles. 


Chapter    V. —  Comparative    Morphology   of    the 
Human  Face. 


PART  II.— THE  EXPRESSION  OF  EMOTIONS. 


Chapter     VI.— The  Alphabet  of  Expression. 

Chapter   VII.— The  Darwinian  Laws  of  Expression 

Chapter  VIII. — Classification  of  Expressions. — 
General  View  of  all  Phenomena 
of  Expression. 

Chapter     IX. —  The  Expression  of  Pleasure. 

Chapter       X.— The  Expression  of  Pain. 

Chapter  XI.— Expression  of  Love  and  of  Benev- 
olence. 

Chapter  XII.— Expression  of  Devotion,  of  Ven- 
eration, and  of  Religious  Feeling. 

Chapter  XIII.— Expression  of  Hatred,  of  Cruelty, 
and  of  Passion. 

Chapter  XIV.— The  Expression  of  Pride,  Vanity, 
Haughtiness,  Modesty,  and  Hu- 
miliation. 

Chapter  XV.— Expression  of  Personal  Feelings, 
Fear,  Distrust. — Description  of 
Timidity,  according  to  the  old 
Physiognomists. 


Chapter     XVI.— The  Expression  of  Thought. 

Chapter  XVII.— General  Expressions.— Repose 
and  Action,  Disquietude,  Im- 
patience, Expectation,  Desire. 

Chapter  XVIII.— Racial  and  Professional  Ex- 
pression. 

Chapter  XIX.— The  Moderators  and  Disturbers 
of  Expression. 

Chapter  XX.— Criteria  for  the  Determination 
of  the  Strength  of  an  Emotion 
by  the  degree  of  the  Expression 

Chapter  XXI. — The  Five  Verdicts  on  the  Human 
Face. 

Chapter  XXII.— Criteria  for  Judging  the  Moral 
Worth  of  a  Physiognomy. 

Chapter  XXIII.—  Criteria  for  Judging  the  Intel- 
lectual Value  of  a  Face. 

Gestures 
hes. 
APPENDIX.— The  Eyes,  Hair,  and  Beard,  in  the 

Italian  Races. 


Chapter  XXFV. —  The  Physiognomy  of  Gestui 
and  the  Expression  of  Cloth 


This  work,  by  Professor  Mantegazza,  a  brilliant  and  versatile  author,  and  the  leading  Italian  anthro- 
pologist, has  already  been  translated  into  several  European  languages.  Professor  Mantegazza,  whose 
name  is  well  known  to  readers  of  Darwin,  has  cooperated  in  the  present  English  edition  of  his  work  by 
writing  a  new  chapter  specially  for  it. 

THE   HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING   CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


No.  128  and  No.  129. 


[Two  double  numbers,  3O  cents  each. 


THE      INDUSTRIAL     REVOLUTION      OF     THE      EIGHTEENTH 

CENTURY  IN  ENGLAND.— Poplar  Addresses,  Notes,  and  other  Frag- 
ments.—  By  the  late  ARNOLD  TOYNBEE,  Tutor  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford. — 
Together  with  a  short  memoir  by  B.  JOWETT,  Master  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford. 


CONTENTS. 


I. 


RlCABDO    AND    THE    OLD    POLITICAL    ECONOMY. 


IT. 


The  change  that  has  come  over  Political  Econ- 
omy.—  Ricardo  responsible  for  the  form  of  that 
Science. —  The  causes  of  his  great  influence. — The 
economic  assumptions  of  his  treatise. —  Ricardo 
ignorant  of  the  nature  of  his  own  method. — 
Malthus's  protest.— Limitations  of  Ricardo's  doc- 
trine recognized  by  Mill  and  Senior. — Observation 
discouraged  by  the  Deductive  Method.— The  effect 
of  the  Labor  Movement  on  Economics. — Modifica- 
tions of  the  Science  by  recent  writers. —  The  new 
method  of  economic  investigation. 


The  philosophic  assumptions  of  Ricardo.— They 
are  derived  from  Adam  Smith. —  The  worship  of 
individual  liberty. —  It  involves  freedom  of  com- 
petition and  removal  of  industrial  restrictions. — 
The  flaw  in  this  theory. —  It  is  confirmed  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  identity  of  individual  and  s'ocial 
interests.— Criticism  of  this  doctrine.— The  idea 
of  invariable  law. — True  nature  of  economic  laws. 
Laws  and  Precepts.— The  great  charge  brought 
against  Political  Economy. — Its  truth  and  its 
falsehood. 


I. —  Introductory. 

H.— England  in  1760. 

III.— England  in  1760. 

IV.— England  in  1760. 

V.— England  in  1760. 

Yeomanry. 

VI.— England  in  1760. 
Wage-earners. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION. 

VII.—  The  Mercantile  System  and  Adam  Smith. 
VIII.— The  Chief  Features  of  the  Revolution. 
IX.— The  Growth  of  Pauperism. 
X. —  Malthus  and  the  Law  of  Population. 
XL— The  Wage-fund  Theory. 
XII.— Ricardo  and  the  Growth  of  Rent. 
XIII. —  Two  Theories  of  Economic  Progress. 
XIV.— The  Future  of  the  Working  Classes. 


-  Population. 
•Agriculture.       [Trade. 
-Manufactures  and 
-The  Decay  of  the 

—The  Condition  of  the 


POPULAR  ADDRESSES. 

1.  Wages  and  Natural  Law. 

2.  Industry  and  Democracy. 

3.  Are  Radicals  Socialists? 


The  Education  of  Co-operators. 

The  Ideal  Relation  of  Church  and  State. 

Notes  and  Jottings. 


No.  130  and  No.  131.  [Two  double  numbers,  30  cents  each. 

THE      ORIGIN      OF      THE      ARYANS.-Au    Account    of    the    Prehistoric 

Ethnology  and  Civilization  of  Europe.— By  ISAAC  TAYLOR,  M.A.,  Litt.  D.,  Hon. 

LL.D.— Illustrated. 

CONTENTS. 


Chapter  I. — The  Aryan  Controversy. 

Chapter  II.— The  Prehistoric  Races  of  Europe. 
1.  The  Neolithic  Age.          4.  The  Celts. 


2.  The  Methods  of  Ar 

thropology. 

3.  The  Races  of  Britain. 


5.  The  Iberia 

6.  The  Seandinavis 

7.  The  Liguriaus. 


Chapter  III.—  The  Neolithic  Culture. 

1.  The  Continuity  of  De-      7.  Dress. 

velopment. 

2.  Metals. 


3.  Weapons. 

4.  Cattle. 

5.  Husbandry. 

6.  Food. 


8.  Habitations. 

9.  The  Boat. 

10.  The  Ox- Wagon. 

11.  Trades. 

12.  Social  Life. 

13.  Relative  Progress. 


Chapter  IV.— The  Aryan  Race. 

1.  The  Permanence  of  Race. 

2.  The  Mutability  of  Language. 

3.  The  Finnic  Hypothesis. 

4.  The  Basques. 

5.  The  Northern  Races. 

Chapter  V.— The  Evolution  of  Aryan  Speech. 

1.  The  Aryan  Languages. 

2.  Dialect  and  Language. 

3.  The  Lost  Aryan  Languages. 

4.  The  Wave-Theory. 

5.  Language  and  Race. 

6.  The  Genesis  of  Aryan  Speech. 

Chapter  VI.— The  Aryan  Mythology. 


The  last  ten  years  have  seen  a  revolution  in  the  opinion  of  scholars  as  to  the  region  in  which 
the  Aryan  race  originated,  and  theories  which  not  long  ago  were  universally  accepted  as  the  well- 
established  conclusions  of  science  now  hardly  find  a  defender.  The  theory  of  migration  from  Asia 
has  been  displaced  by  a  new  theory  of  origin  in  Northern  Europe.  In  Germany  several  works  have 
been  devoted  to  the  subject ;  but  this  is  the  first  English  work  which  has  yet  appeared  embodying  the 
results  recently  arrived  at  by  philologists,  archaeologists,  and  anthropologists.  This  volume  affords  a 
fresh  and  highly  interesting  account  of  the  present  state  of  speculation  on  a  highly  interesting  subject. 


Published    semi-monthly.—  $3  a  year.—  Single    numbers,  15  cents. 


OF    POPULAR    SCIENCE. 


No.  132  and  No.  133.  [Two  double  numbers,  3O  cents  ea«h. 

THE    EVOLUTION    OF    SEX.- By  Prof.  PATRICK  GEDDES  and  J.  ARTHUR 
THOMSON.— With   104  illustrations. 

CONTENTS. 

BOOK  I.— MALE  AND  FEMALE. 


Chapter      I.— The  Sexes  and  Sexual   Selection. 

Chapter    II.—  The  Sexes,  and  Criticism  of  Sexual 
Selection. 


Chapter  III.— The  Determination  of  Sex  (Hy- 
potheses and  Observations. 

Chapter  IV.— The  Determination  of  Sex  (Con- 
structive Treatment). 


BOOK  II.— ANALYSIS  OP  SEX.— ORGANS,  TISSUES,  CELLS. 


Chapter     V.— Sexual  Organs  and  Tissues. 
Chapter   VI.—  Hermaphroditism. 
Chapter  VII. —  The    Sex-elements    (General    and 
Historical. 


Chapter  VIII— The  Egg-cell  or  Ovum. 
Chapter     IX.— The  Male-cell  or  Sperm. 
Chapter       X.—  Theory  of  Sex:    Its  Nature  and 
Origin. 


Chapter     XI. —  Sexual  Reproduction. 
Chapter   XII.— Theory  of  Fertilization. 
Chapter  XIII. —  Degenerate  Sexual  Reproduction, 
or  Parthenogenesis. 


BOOK  III. —  PROCESSES  OP  REPRODUCTION. 

Chapter  XTV.— Asexual  Reproduction. 
Chapter    XV.— Alternation  of  Generations. 


BOOK  IV.— THEORY  OP  REPRODUCTION. 


Chapter     XVI.— Growth  and  Reproduction. 

Chapter   XVII.— Theory  of    Reproduction   (con- 

tinned). 
Chapter  XVIII.—  Special   Physiology  of  Sex  and 

Reproduction. 


Chapter     XIX.— Psychological   and  Ethical  As- 
pects. 
Chapter       XX.— Laws  of  Multiplication. 

Chapter     XXI.— The    Reproductive    Factor    in 
Evolution. 


A  work  which,  for  range  and  grace,  mastery  of  material,  originality,  and  incisiveness  of  style  and 
treatment,  is  not  readily  to  be  matched  in  the  long  list  of  books  designed  more  or  less  to  popularize 
science. —  Scottish  Leader. 

A  model  of  scientific  exposition.—  Scotsman. 

No.  134.  [Double  number,  30  cents. 

THE  LAW  OF  PRIVATE  RIGHT.-By  GEORGE  H.  SMITH,  authoi -of 
"Elements  of  Right,  and  of  the  Law,"  and  of  Essays  on  "The  Certainty  of  the 
Law,  and  the  Uncertainty  of  Judicial  Decisions,"  "The  True  Method  of  Legal 
Education,"  &c.,  &c. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 


I.—  Explanation  of  the  Design  and  Scope  of  the 

Work. 

II.— Of  the  Definition  of  the  Law. 
III.— Of  the  Division  of  the  Law. 

PART  I. 

Of  the  Nature   of   the  Law  of  Private 
Right. 

Chapter  I. 
Analytical  Outline  of  the  Law  of  Private  Right. 

Chapter  II. 

Of  the  Nature  of  Right,  and  of  the  Law  of  Private 
Right,  and  their  Relation  to  Each  Other. 


PART  II. 

Of  the  Law  of  Private  Right  as  Histor- 
ically Developed. 

Chapter  I. 
Of  the  Historical   Development  of  Jurisdiction. 


Chapter  II. 

Historical  Development  of  the  Law  (as  opposed 
to  Equity). 

Chapter  III. 
Historical  Development  of  Equity. 

PART  III. 

Of  the  Nature  and  of  the  Method  anil 
Principles   of  Right. 

Chapter  I. 
Definition  of  Rights. 

Chapter  II. 

The  Same  Subject  Continued,  and  herein,  of  the 
Standard  of  Right  and  Wrong. 

Chapter  III. 
Of  the  Method  and  First  Principles  of  Right. 

Chapter  IV. 

Of  the  Limit  to  the  Liberty  of  the  Individual. 
Imposed  by  the  Rights  of  the  State. 

Chapter  V. 

Natural   Rights   Demonstrated   from  the  Above 
Principles. 


THE   HUMBOLDT  PUBLISHING   CO.,  28  Lafayette  Place,  New  York. 


THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


Nos.  135,  136,  137,  138.  [Four  double  numbers,  30  cents  each. 

CAPITAL:    A    Critical    Analysis    of    Capitalist    Production.— By 

KARL  MARX.—  Translated  from  the  third  German  edition  by  SAMUEL  MOORE 
and  EDWARD  AVELING,  and  edited  by  FREDERICK  ENGELS. — The  only  American 
Edition.— Carefully  Revised. 

PART  I. 

COMMODITIES    AND    MONEY. 


Chapter    I. —  Commodities. 

(a)  Elementary  or  Accidental  Form  of  Valv 

(b)  Total  or  Expanded  Form  of  Value. 

(c)  The  Genei-al  Form  of  Value. 

(d)  The  Money  Form. 
Chapter    II. —  Exchange. 


Chapter  III. —  Money,  or  the  Circulation  of  Com- 
modities. 

1.  Tke  Measure  of  Values. 

2.  The  Medium  of  Circulation. 

3.  Money:  hoarding,  means  of  payment,  uni- 

versal money. 


PART  II. 

THE     TRANSFORMATION    OF    MONEY    INTO     CAPITAL. 

Chapter  IV.— The  General  Formula  for  Capital.    I    Chapter  VI.— The  Buying  and  Selling  of  Labor- 
Chapter  V.—  Contradictions  in  the  General  Form-  power, 
ula  of  Capital. 

PART  III. 

THE    PRODUCTION    OF    ABSOLUTE     SURPLUS    VALUE. 


Chapter  VII. — The  Labor-process  and  the  Process 

of  Producing  Surplus  Value. 
Chapter  VIII.— Constant   Capital   and  Variable 


Chapter  IX.— The  Rate  of  Surplus  Value. 

Chapter     X.— The  Working  Day. 

Chapter  XI.— Rate  and  Mass  of  Surplus  Value. 


Capital. 

PART  IV. 

THE    PRODUCTION    OF    RELATIVE    SURPLUS    VALUE. 

Chapter    XII.— The  Concept  of  Relative  Surplus    I    Chapter  XTV.— Division  of  Labor  and  Manufac- 

Value.  ture. 

Chapter  XIII.— Co-operation.  |    Chapter     XV.— Machinery  and  Modern  Industry. 

PART  V. 

THE     PRODUCTION    OF    ABSOLUTE    AND     OF    RELATIVE     SURPLUS    VALUE. 

Chapter    XVI.— Absolute  and  Relative  Surplus  I    Chapter  XVIII.— Various  Formulae  for  the  Rate 

Value.  .  0       .       „  , 

Chapter  XVII.— Changes  of  Magnitude  in  the  price  of  Surplus  Value. 

of  Labor-power  and  in  Surplus  Value. 

PART  VI. 

WAGES. 

Chapter  XIX.— The  Transformation  of  the  Value  I  Chapter  XX.— Time-wages, 
(and  respectively  the  Price)  of  Labor-  I  Chapter  XXI. —  Piece- wages, 
power  into  Wages.  I  Chapter  XXII.— National  Differences  of  Wages. 

PART  VII. 

THE    ACCUMULATION    OF    CAPITAL. 

Chapter  XXIII.— Simple  Reproduction.  I    Chapter    XXV.— The  General  Law  of  Capitalist 

Chapter  XXIV.— Conversion    of   Surplus   Value  Accumulation, 

into  Capital. 

PART  VIII. 

THE     SO-CALLED    PRIMITIVE     ACCUMULATION. 

Chapter      XXVI.—  The  Secret  of  Primitive  Accu- 


aulatior 

Chapter  XXVII.— Expropriation  of  the  Agricul- 
tural Population  from  the  Land. 

Chapter  XXVIII.—  Bloody  Legislation  against  the 
Expropriated  from  the  End  of  the  15th 
Century.  Forcing  down  of  Wages  bv  Acts 
of  Parliament. 

Chapter  XXIX.— Genesis  of  the  Capitalist  Farmer. 


Chapter  XXX.— Reaction  of  the  Agricultural 
Revolution  on  Industry.  Creation  of  the 
Home  Market  for  Industrial  Capital. 

Chapter  XXXI.— Genesis  of  the  Industrial  Cap- 
italist. 

Chapter  XXX1L—  Historical  Tendency  of  Cap- 
italistic Accumulation. 

Chapter  XXXIII.— The  Modern  Theory  of  Col- 
onization. 


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THE     HUMBOLDT     LIBRARY 


No.  139. 

LIGHTNING,   THUNDER,   AND    LIGHTNING-CONDUCTORS.- By 

GERALD    MoLLOY,   D.D.,   D.Sc.— Illustrated. 


CONTENTS. 

LECTURE   I. 

LIGHTNING    AND    THUNDER. 


Identity  of  Lightning  and  Electricity— Frauk- 
liu's  Experiment— Fatal  Experiment  of  Richmau— 
Immediate  Cause  of  Lightning — Illustration  from 
Electric  Spark— What  a  Flash  of  Lightning  is— 
Duration  of  a  Flash  of  Lightning — Experiments 
of  Professor  Rood — Wheatstone's  Experiments — 
Experiment  with  Rotating  Disk— Brightness  of  a 


Flash  of  Lightning— Various  Forms  of  Lightning 
—Forked  Lightning,  Sheet  Lightning,  Globe  Light- 
ning—St.  Elmo's  Fire— Experimental  Illustration 
— Origin  of  Lightning — Length  of  a  Flash  of  Light- 
ning—Physical Cause  of  Thunder— Rolling  of 
Thunder— Succession  of  Peals— Variation  of  In- 
tensity—Distance of  a  Flash  of  Lightning. 


LECTURE    II. 

LIGHTNING-CONDUCTORS. 


Destructive  Effects  of  Lightning — Destruction 
of  Buildings— Destruction  of  Ships  at  Sea— De- 
struction of  Powder  Magazines  —  Experimental 
Illustrations— Destruction  of  Life  by  Lightning— 
The  Return  Shock — Franklin's  Lightning-rods — 
Introduction  of  Lightning-rods  into  England — The 
Battle  of  Balls  and  Points— Functions  of  a  Light- 


ning-conductor  — Conditions  of  a  Lightning-con- 
ductor—Mischief Done  by  Bad  Conductors— Evil 
Effects  of  a  Bad  Earth  Contact— Danger  from  Rival 
Conductors— Insulation  of  Lightning-conductors- 
Personal  Safety  in  a  Thunder-storm— Practical 
Rules — Security  afforded  by  Lightning-rods. 


APPENDIX. 
RECENT    CONTROVERSY    ON    LIGHTNING-CONDUCTORS. 

Theory  of  Lightning-conductors  Challenged — 
Lectures  of  Professor  Lodge— Short  Account  of 
his  Views  and  Arguments — Effect  of  Self-induction 
on  a  Lightning-rod — Experiment  on  the  Discharge 
of  a  Leydeu  Jar — Outer  Shell  only  of  a  Lightning- 
rod  acts  as  a  Conductor — Discussion  at  the  Meet- 
wig  of  the  British  Association,  September,  1888— 


Statement  by  Mr.  Preece— Lord  Rayleigh  and  Sir 
William  Thomson — Professor  Rowland  and  Pro- 
fessor Forbes— M.  de  Fonvielle,  Sir  James  Doug- 
lass, and  Mr.  Symons — Reply  of  Prof essor  Lodge — 
Concluding  Remarks  of  Prof  essor  Fitzgerald.  Pres- 
ident of  the  Section — Summary  Showing  the  Pres- 
ent State  of  the  Question. 


No.  140. 

WHAT     IS     MUSIC  ?  — With  an  Appendix  on  How  the  Geometrical  Lines  have 
their  Counterparts  in  Music.— By  ISAAC  L.  RICE. 


I.— Chinese  Theory. 

II.— Hindoo  Theory. 
III. —  Egyptian  Theory. 
IV.— Grecian  Theories. 

V.— Arabic-Persian  Theory. 


CONTENTS. 

PART  I. 

VI.  —  Scholastic  Theories. 
VII.— Euler's  Theory. 
VIII.— Herbert  Spencer's  Theory. 
IX.— Helmholtz's  Theory. 


I.— Space  and  Time  (Rest  and  Motion). 
II.— Vibrations. 
III. —  Colors  and  Forms. 


PART  II. 

I    TV.—  Internal  Government. 

V.— States  of  Mind. 
|    Conclusion. 


As  the  final  result  of  his  speculations,  Mr.  Rice  denies  that  music  is  an  invention  by  man.  and  holds 
that  it  exists  in  Nature ,-  that  it  is  "not  accidental  and  human,  but  dynamical  and  cosmieal."  His  view 
seems  to  me  to  be  sustained  by  all  the  physical  facts  of  Nature  and  all  the  experience  of  man. —  RICHARD 
GRANT  WHITE. 


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OF    POPULAR     SCIENCE. 


No.  141. 

ARE    THE     EFFECTS     OF    USE    AND     DISUSE     INHERITED? 

An  Examination  of    the  View  held    by  Spencer   and    Darwin. —  By  WILLIAM 
PLATT  BALL. 


CONTEXTS. 


IMPORTANCE  AND  BEARING  OP  THE  INQUIRY. 

SPENCER'S  EXAMPLES  AND  ARGUMENTS. 

Diminution  of  the  Jaws. 

Diminished  Biting  Muscles  of  Lapdogs. 

Crowded  Teeth. 

Blind  Cave-Crabs. 

No  Concomitant  Variation  from  Concomitant 
Disease. 

The  Giraffe,  and  Necessity  for  Concomitant 
Variation. 

Alleged  Ruinous  Effects  of  Natural  Selection. 

Adverse  Case  of  Neuter  Insects. 

^Esthetic  Faculties. 

Lack  of  Evidence. 

Inherited  Epilepsy  in  Guinea-pigs. 

Inherited  Insanity  and  Nervous  Disorders. 

Individual  and  Transmissible  Type  not  Mod- 
ified Alike. 

DARWIN'S  EXAMPLES. 

Reduced  Wings  of  Birds  of  Oceanic  Islands. 

Drooping  Ears  and  Deteriorated  Instincts. 

Wings  and  Legs  of  Ducks  and  Fowls. 

Pigeon's  Wings. 

Shortened  Breastbone  in  Pigeons. 

Shortened   Feet  in  Pigeons. 

Shortened   Legs  of  Rabbits. 

Blind  Cave-Animals. 

Inherited  Habits. 

Tameness  of  Rabbits.  ftion. 

Modifications  Obviously  Attributable  to  Selec- 


Similar  Effects  of  Natural  Selection  and  of 

Use-Inheritance. 

Inferiority  of  Senses  in  Europeans. 
Short-sight  in  Watchmakers  and  Engravers. 
Larger  Hands  in  Laborers'  Infants. 
Thickened  Sole  in  Infants. 
A  Source  of  Mental  Confusion. 
Weakness  of  Use-inheritance. 

INHERITED  INJURIES. 
Inherited  Mutilations. 
The  Motmot's  Tail. 

Other  Inherited  Injuries  Mentioned  by  Darwin. 
Quasi-Inheritance. 

MISCELLANEOUS  CONSIDERATIONS. 

True  Relation  of  Parents  and  Offspring. 

Inverse  Inheritance. 

Early  Origin  of  the  Ova. 

Marked    Effects  of  Use  and  Disuse  on  the 
Individual.  [ance  1 

Would  Natural  Selection  Favor  Use-Inherit- 

Use-Inheritanee  an  Evil. 

Varied  Effects  of  Use  and  Disuse. 

Use-Inheritance  Implies  Pangenesis. 

Pangenesis  Improbable. 

Spencer's  Explanation  of  Use-Inheritance. 
CONCLUSIONS. 

Use-Inheritance  Discredited  as  Unnecessary, 
Unproven,  and  Improbable. 

Modern  Reliance  on  Use-Inheritance  Mis- 
placed. 


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A  VINDICATION    OF  THE    RiGHTS    OF  WOMAN.- With  Strictures 

on  Political  and  Moral  Subjects.— -By  MARY  WOLLSTONECRAFT.— New  Edition, 
with  an  Introduction  by  Mrs.  HENRY  FAWCETT. 

CONTENTS. 


Chapter  I.— The  Rights  and  Involved  Duties  of 
Mankind  Considered. 

Chapter  II.— The  Prevailing  Opinion  of  a  Sexual 
Character  Discussed. 

Chapter  III.— The  Same  Subject  Continued. 

Chapter  IV.— Observations  on  the  State  of  Deg- 
radation  to  which  Woman  is  Reduced  by  Va- 
rious Causes. 

Chapter  V. —  Animadversions  on  Some  of  the 
Writers  who  have  Rendered  Women  Objects 
of  Pity,  bordering  on  Contempt. 

Chapter  VI.—  The  Effect  which  an  Early  Asso- 
ciation of  Ideas  has  upon  the  Character. 

Chapter  VII.—  Modesty.— Comprehensively  Con- 
sidered, and  not  as  i\  Sexual  Virtue. 


Chapter  VIII.—  Morality  Undermined  by  Sexual 
Notions  of  the  Importance  of  a  Good  Repu- 
tation. 

Chapter  IX.— Of  the  Pernicious  Effects  which 
arise  from  the  Unnatural  Distinctions  estab- 
lished in  Society. 

Chapter       X.— Parental  Affection. 
Chapter     XI.— Duty  to  Parents. 
Chapter   XII.— On  National  Education. 

Chapter  XIII.— Some  Instances  of  the  Folly  which 
the  Ignorance  of  Women  generates ;  with  Con- 
cluding Reflections  on  the  Moral  Improvement 
that  a  Revolution  in  Female  Manners  might 
naturally  be  expected  to  produce. 


This  edition  is  a  reprint  of  the  first  edition,  which  appeared  nearly  one  hundred 
years  ago. 


Women   at  the  Present   Time   and   Women   a  Hundred  Yes 


Ago. 


The  women  of  today  can  scarcely  realize  the  conditions  their  sex  had  to  confront  in  those  old  times,- 
but  the  degradation  was  very  real,  and  the  protest  against  it  was  very  much  needed.  Mrs.  Fawccti  V 
introduction  will  be  found  highly  interesting  and  helpful. —  New  York  Tribune. 


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departments:— 

ASTRONOMY. 

Xo.  14.— THE    WONDERS    OF    THE     HEAVENS FLAMMARION. 

Xo.  20.— THE     ROMANCE     OF    ASTRONOMY MlLLKR. 

Xo.  49.— THE     SUN:    ITS    CONSTITUTION;    PHENOMENA;    CONDITION.  CABE. 

Essays  on  astronomical  subjects  ai-e  also  contained  in 
Xo.  1.— LIGHT     SCIENCE     FOR    LEISURE     HOURS PROCTOR. 

Xo.  19.— FAMILIAR    ESSAYS     ON     SCIENTIFIC     SUBJECTS PROCTOR. 

Xo.  24.— POPULAR    SCIENTIFIC     LECTURES HELMHOLTZ. 

Xo.  41.— CURRENT    DISCUSSIONS    IN    SCIENCE WILLIAMS. 

Xo.  82.— ILLUSIONS  OF  THE  SENSES,  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS.  .  .  PROCTOR. 
No.  90— NOTES  ON  EARTHQUAKES,  ETC.  .  .".  .  '  .  .  .'  .  .  PROCTOR. 
Xo.  120.— THE  MODERN  THEORY  OF  HEAT.  .  MOLLOY. 


BIOGRAPHY.— HISTORY   OF   SCIENCE. 

Xo.  43.— DARWIN    AND     HUMBOLDT AGASSIZ,  ETC. 

Xo.  80.— CHARLES    DARWIN:     HIS    LIFE    AND    WORK.          .        .        .      GRANT  ALLEN. 
Xo.  89.— THE     GENESIS     OF    SCIENCE SPENCER. 

(  A    HALF-CENTURY    OF    SCIENCE HUXLEY. 

Xo.  96.  \ 

(  THE     PROGRESS     OF    SCIENCE    FROM     1836    to    1886.  .         .       GRANT  ALLEN. 

BIOLOGY.— ZOOLOGY.— BOTANY. 

Xos.  11  and  12.— THE    NATURALIST    ON    THE    RIVER    AMAZONS.     .        .  BATKS. 

Xo.  26.— THE     EVOLUTIONIST    AT    LARGE ALLEN. 

Xo.  29.— FACTS    AND    FICTIONS    OF    ZOOLOGY WILSON. 

Xo.  33— VIGNETTES     FROM    NATURE ALLEN. 

Xo.  48— LIFE    IN    NATURE HiNTON. 

No.  64.— THE    DISTRIBUTION    OF    ANIMALS    AND    PLANTS.      .        .  WALLACE,  DYER. 

Xo.  84— STUDIES    OF    ANIMATED    NATURE DALLAS. 

Xo.  92.— THE     FORMATION    OF    VEGETABLE    MOULD DARWIN. 

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EARLY    HISTORY    OF    MAN. 

No.  25.— THE     ORIGIN    OF    NATIONS RAWLINSON. 

Nos.  44  and  45.— THE    DAWN    OF    HISTORY KEARY. 

No.  60.— THE     CHILDHOOD    OF    THE     WORLD CLODD. 

No.  71.— ANTHROPOLOGY — ARCHEOLOGY WILSON. 

Nos.  130  and  131.— THE    ORIGIN    OF    THE    ARYANS ISAAC  TAYLOR. 

EDUCATION.—  LANGUAGE. 

No.  5.— EDUCATION:    INTELLECTUAL,  MORAL,  AND    PHYSICAL.     .         .         SPENCER. 

No.  8.— THE     STUDY    OF    LANGUAGES MARCEL. 

Nos.  30  and  31.— THE    STUDY    OF    WORDS TRENCH. 

fTHE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  STYLE.  .      .           SPENCER. 

'{THE   MOTHER  TONGUE.  .      .  BAIN. 

No.  66.— TECHNICAL  EDUCATION HUXLEY. 

No.  91 THE  RISE   OF  UNIVERSITIES LAURIE. 

No.  98.— THE  TEACHING  OF  SCIENCE CLIFFORD. 

No.  100.— SCIENCE  AND  POETRY WILSON. 

Xo.  105.— FREEDOM  IN  SCIENCE  AND  TEACHING HAECKEL. 

Nos.  108  and  109.— ENGLISH,    FAST    AND    PRESENT TRENCH. 

No.  21.— THE     PHYSICAL    BASIS     OF    LIFE,   AND     OTHER    ESSAYS.      .          HUXLEY. 

No.  53.— ANIMAL     AUTOMATISM,   AND     OTHER    ESSAYS HUXLEY. 

No.  61.— MISCELLANEOUS     ESSAYS PROCTOR. 

No.  66.— TECHNICAL    EDUCATION HUXLEY. 

No.  73.— EVOLUTION    IN    HISTORY,   LANGUAGE,   &c Various  authors. 

ETHICS.— MANNERS    AND    CUSTOMS. 

No.  9.— THE    DATA    OF    ETHICS SPENCER. 

No.  28.— FASHION    IN    DEFORMITY FLOWER. 

No.  55.— THE     SCIENTIFIC    BASIS     OF    MORALS CLIFFORD. 

No.  63.- PROGRESSIVE    MORALITY FOWLER. 

No.  88.— SCIENCE    AND    CRIME .  WILSON. 

No.  93.— CAPITAL    PUNISHMENT BLEYER. 

EVOLUTION    THEORY.— DARWINISM. 

No.  16.— THE    ORIGIN    OF    SPECIES HUXLEY. 

No.  36.— LECTURES    ON    EVOLUTION HUXLEY. 

No.  40.— ORGANIC    EVOLUTION ...        ROMANES. 

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EVOLUTION    THEORY.— DARWINISM. 

Nos.  58  and  59.—  THE    ORIGIN    OF    SPECIES DARWIN. 

No.  94,-  THE     FACTORS     OF     ORGANIC     EVOLUTION SPENCER. 

No.  110.— THE     STORY     OF     CREATION CLODD. 

Nos.  115  and  116.— DARWINISM.    ; A.  R.  WALLACE. 

Nos.  117  aud  118.— MODERN     SCIENCE     AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.      .         .        S.  LAING. 

Nos.  132  and  133— THE     EVOLUTION    OF    SEX GEDDES  and  THOMSON. 

No.  23.— SCIENTIFIC     SOPHISMS    (criticism) WAINWRIGHT. 

See  also,  for  essays  coming  under  this  head, 

No.  17.— PROGRESS:     ITS    LAW    AND     CAUSE SPENCER. 

No.  21.— THE    PHYSICAL    BASIS    OF    LIFE HUXLEY. 

No.  73.— EVOLUTION    IN    HISTORY,   LANGUAGE,   &c Various  authors. 


GEOLOGY.— GEOGRAPHY. 

No.  6.— TOWN     GEOLOGY.     .        .".'''.        .    '    .      '.        ."'"'.'      .        .        .        ..     KlNGSLEY. 

Nos.  38  and  39.— GEOLOGICAL    SKETCHES.     ''     .        .        .        .        .        .""'".        .  GEIKIE. 

No.  104.— TROPICAL     AFRICA '     .     '•'.'    ".!       .        \        .    DRUMMOND. 

Nos.  122  and  123.— THE    ORIGIN    OF    ALPINE    LAKES Various  authors. 

See,  also, 
No.  21.— THE     PHYSICAL    BASIS     OF     LIFE,   AND     OTHER    ESSAYS.  HUXLEY. 

No.  41.— CURRENT    DISCUSSIONS     IN     SCIENCE WILLIAMS. 

No.  79.— SCIENTIFIC    ASPECTS    OF    SOME    FAMILIAR    THINGS.  .      WILLIAMS. 


MAN.— ORIGIN.— PLACE    IN    NATURE.— RACES. 

Xo.  4.— MAN'S    PLACE    IN    NATURE. HUXUSY. 

No.  71.— ANTHROPOLOGY ARCHAEOLOGY WILSON  and  TYLOR. 

Nos.  74,  75,  76,  77.— THE     DESCENT    OF    MAN DARWIN. 

Nos.  130  and  131.— THE    ORIGIN    OF    THE    ARYANS ISAAC  TAYLOR. 


MEDICINE.— EPIDEMICS. 

No.  15.— LONGEVITY GARDNER. 

No.  67.— THE     BLACK    DEATH.         . HECKER. 

No.  72.—  THE     DANCING    MANIA    OF    THE    MIDDLE     AGES.        .        .        .  HKCKER. 

No.  87.— THE     MORPHINE     HABIT BALL. 

See  also  works  by  RIBOT  under  the  head  "Psychology." 
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PHYSICS. 

No.  2.— THE    FORMS    OF    WATER TYXDALL. 

No.  7.— THE     CONSERVATION    OF    ENERGY BALFOUR  STEWART. 

No.  10.— THE    THEORY    OF    SOUND    IN    ITS    RELATION    TO    MUSIC.        .     BLASEENA. 

No.  18.— LESSONS    IN    ELECTRICITY TYNDALI* 

No.  37.— LECTURES    ON    LIGHT TYNDALL. 

No.  106.— FORCE    AND    ENERGY GRANT  ALLEN. 

No.  119.— THE     ELECTRIC     LIGHT MOLLOT. 

No.  120— THE     MODERN     THEORY     OF    HEAT MoLLOY. 

Nos.  117  and  118— MODERN     SCIENCE    AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.      .        .  LAINO. 

POLITICAL,  ECONOMIC,  AND  FINANCIAL  SCIENCE. 

No.  3— PHYSICS    AND    POLITICS BAGEHOT. 

No.  27— LANDHOLDING    IN     ENGLAND FlSHEE. 

No.  42.— HISTORY    OF    THE     SCIENCE    OF    POLITICS POLLOCK. 

Nos.  50  and  51.— MONEY   AND    THE    MECHANISM    OF  EXCHANGE.      STANLEY  JEVONS. 

No.  78— THE     DISTRIBUTION     OF     LAND     IN    ENGLAND BlRKBECK. 

No.  83— PROFIT-SHARING SEDLEY  TAYLOR. 

Nos.  102  and  107—  ULTIMATE    FINANCE BLACK. 

No.  103.— THE     COMING     SLAVERY SPENCER. 

No.  121— UTILITARIANISM. J.  S.  MILL. 

No.  124— THE    QUINTESSENCE    OF     SOCIALISM SCHAFFLE. 

No.  125— DARWINISM    AND     POLITICS RITCHIE. 

Nos.  128  and  129— THE    INDUSTRIAL     REVOLUTION TOYNBEE. 

No.  134— THE    LAW    OF    PRIVATE     RIGHT SMITH. 

Nos.  135,  136,  137— CAPITAL KARL  MARX. 

See  also  No.  68,  Essays  by  Herbert  Spencer.— No.  70,  Essays  by  Spencer.— No.  90,  Essays  by  Proctor. 

PSYCHOLOGY.—  PHYSIOGNOMY. 

No.  13— MIND    AND    BODY BAIN. 

No.  22— SEEING    AND    THINKING. CLIFFORD. 

No.  46— THE     DISEASES     OF    MEMORY RlBOT. 

No.  52— THE     DISEASES     OF    THE    WILL RlBOT. 

Nos.  56  and  57.— ILLUSIONS :     A    PSYCHOLOGICAL    STUDY SULLY. 

No.  82.— ILLUSIONS     OF    THE     SENSES PROCTOR. 

No.*87.  -THE    MORPHINE    HABIT BALL. 

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PSYCHOLOGY.— PHYSIOGNOMY. 

No.  95.— DISEASES     OF    PERSONALITY RlBOT. 

No.  101.— DREAMS — ASSOCIATION    OF    IDEAS SULLY  and  ROBERTSON. 

No.  112.— THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    ATTENTION.  .     RIBOT. 

No.  113.— HYPNOTISM:    ITS  HISTORY  AND  PRESENT  DEVELOPMENT.    BJORNSTROM. 

Nos.  127  and  128.— PHYSIOGNOMY   AND    EXPRESSION MANTEGAZZA. 

See,  also, 
No.  32.— HEREDITARY    TRAITS,  AND    OTHER    ESSAYS.  .....        PROCTOR. 

No.  53.— ANIMAL    AUTOMATISM,   AND    OTHER    ESSAYS HUXLEY. 

No.  65.— CONDITIONS    OF    MENTAL    DEVELOPMENT CLIFFORD. 

RELIGION.— MYTHOLOGY. 

No.  35— ORIENTAL    RELIGIONS.    .        .        .        .        .        .        .'     :        .        .        .        .      CAIRO. 

No.  47.— THE     CHILDHOOD     OF    RELIGIONS..        . •'•     .        .        .        .        .        .        .     CLODD. 

No.  54.— THE     BIRTH    AND     GROWTH     OF    MYTH.      .       V       .        ....     CLODD. 

No.  62.— THE     RELIGIONS     OF    THE     ANCIENT    WORLD RAWLINSON. 

No.  69.  — FETICHISM.        .        .     '    „        .      '.        .'.--••.    •    .'  ''     .•'•.<> ';••'.        .        .       SCHULTZE. 

No.  81.— THE     MYSTERY    OF    MATTER,    ETC.         .        .     ».        .        .        .'       .         .    PICTON. 

No.  85.— THE    ESSENTIAL    NATURE     OF    RELIGION.       ,"      .        .        i.  •     .        .     PiCTON. 

See  also  No.  68,  Essays  by  Herbert  Spencer.—  No.  90,  Essays  by  Proctor. 

SCIENTIFICO-PHILOSOPHICAL   SPECULATION. 

No.  3.— PHYSICS    AND    POLITICS.         .       .      ..      V      .       1  '    .       .**     .       .       BAOEHOT. 

No.  20.— THE     ROMANCE     OF    ASTRONOMY.    .        .       ", MILLER. 

No.  48.— LIFE     IN    NATURE.        ..,     ...       .T      .        ,,.,.. HlNTON. 

No.  81.— MYSTERY     OF     MATTER — PHILOSOPHY    OF    IGNORANCE.        .         .   PiCTON. 

No.  85.— THE     ESSENTIAL    NATURE     OF    RELIGION PiCTON. 

No.  86.- UNSEEN    UNIVERSE — PHILOSOPHY    OF    PURE     SCIENCES.      .       CLIFFORD. 

No.  89. -THE     GENESIS     OF     SCIENCE.        .        .        .--. SPENCER. 

Nos.  97  and  111.— THE    PLEASURES     OF    LIFE LUBBOCK. 

No.  98.— COSMIC    EVOLUTION TEACHINGS    OF    SCIENCE.         .        .        .       CLIFFORD. 

No.  105.— FREEDOM    IN     SCIENCE     AND     TEACHING.  .        .         .        rtAECKEL. 

No.  114.— CHRISTIANITY    AND    AGNOSTICISM Various  authors. 

Nos.  117  and  118.— MODERN     SCIENCE    AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.      .        .        S.  LAING. 

(  DARWINISM     AND     POLITICS RITCHIE. 

No.  125.} 

(  ADMINISTRATIVE    NIHILISM HUXLEY. 

*%  Most  of  tlie  Essays  under  this  head  are  named  In  other  divisions  of  this  classified 
Catalogue;    but  they  form  a  class   by  themselves. 

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MISCELLANEOUS. 

No.  1.— LIGHT     SCIENCE    FOR    LEISURE     HOURS PROCTOR. 

No.  17.— PROGRESS:     ITS    LAW    AND    CAUSE SPENCER. 

No.  19.— FAMILIAR    ESSAYS     ON    SCIENTIFIC     SUBJECTS PROCTOR. 

No.  21.— THE    PHYSICAL    BASIS     OF    LIFE,   AND    OTHER    ASSAYS.      .          HUXLEY. 

Xo.  41.— CURRENT    DISCUSSIONS    IN    SCIENCE WILLIAMS. 

No.  48.— LIFE    IN    NATURE HlNTON. 

Xo.  53.— ANIMAL    AUTOMATISM,   AND     OTHER    ESSAYS HUXLEY. 

No.  61.— MISCELLANEOUS     ESSAYS PROCTOR. 

No.  70.— ESSAYS,   PRACTICAL    AND     SPECULATIVE SPENCER. 

No.  73.— EVOLUTION  IN  HISTORY,  LANGUAGE,  AND  SCIENCE.  Various  authors. 
No.  79.— SCIENTIFIC  ASPECTS  OF  SOME  FAMILIAR  THINGS.  .  .  WILLIAMS. 
No.  82.— ILLUSIONS  OF  THE  SENSES,  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS.  .  .  PROCTOB. 

No.  86.— UNSEEN    UNIVERSE PHILOSOPHY    OB'    PURE     SCIENCES.      .       CLIFFORD. 

Nos.  97  and  111.— THE    PLEASURES    OF    LIFE LUBBOCK. 

No.  98.— COSMIC    EVOLUTION — TEACHINGS    OF    SCIENCE.         .        .        .       CLIFFORD. 

No.  99.— NATURE-STUDIES Various  authors. 

No.  100.— SCIENCE    AND    POETRY.         . WILSON. 

No.  103.— THE     COMING     SLAVERY,   ETC SPENCER. 

No.  114.— CHRISTIANITY    AND    AGNOSTICISM HUXLEY  and  others. 

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broad  realm  of  fiction,  it  proposes  to  provide  the  public  witli  the  great  classics  of 
modern  science;  strong  meat  for  them  that  are  of  full  age;  and  all  this  for 
a  beggarly  -fifteen  cents  a  volume!  In  other  words,  the  works  of  such  men  as  Darwin, 
Tyndall,  iJiixley,  E.  A.  Proctor,  Herbert  Spencer,  Bagehot,  Bain,  W.  K.  Clifford, 
Charles  Kingsley,  Sir  John  Lubbock,  and  many  other  celebrated  English  authors  are 
placed  before  the  public  at  sevenpence  halfpenny  a  volume.  *  *  *  They  are  sup- 
plying the  British  Isles  and  colonies  with  these  remarkably  cheap  productions. 

EVERY  VOLUME    IS    OF   ACKNOWLEDGED    EXCELLENCE. 

[From  The  Evening  Mercury,  St.  John's,  Newfoundland.] 

Among  the  numerous  issues  of  books  at  once  good  and  cheap,  those  of  The 
Humboldt  Library  hold  a  foremost  place.  One  volume  is  published  monthly,  and  the 
series  now  numbers  over  one  hundred  volumes.  The  paper  and  type  are  excellent, — 
all  that  could  be  desired, —  and  the  price  is  a  perfect  marvel  even  in  these  days  of 
cheap  literature.  *  *  *  On  the  score  of  mere  cheapness — the  quality  of  paper  and 
type  and  the  quantity  of  matter  being  taken  into  account — The  Humboldt  Libran/ 
carries  off  the  palm.  In  many  instances  the  price  is  about  one  tenth  that  charged 
by  other  publishers  for  the  same  book,  in  cloth  binding. 

Books,  however,  like  other  articles,  may  be  at  once  "cheap  and  nasty."  Not  so 
with  the  issues  of  The  Httmboldt  Library.  Nearly  every  volume  is  one  of  acknowledged 
excellence.  All  trashy  productions  are  excluded,  and  only  those  of  writers  who  belong 
to  the  front  rank  in  their  several  departments  find  admission  into  The  Humboldt. 

Nearly  all  the  volumes  belong  to  the  scientific  and  philosophical  class  of  books, 
especially  such  as  are  popular  in  style  and  adapted  to  educated  tastes.  The  order  of 
novel-readers  will  find  no  food  to  suit  them  in  The  Humboldt;  but  the  thoughtful  and 
intelligent — those  who  wish  to  make  themselves  acquainted  with  the  foremost  writers 
in  the  domains  of  science,  in  philosophic  speculation,  in  morals,  in  political  economy, 
in  the  science  of  politics,  in  the  history  of  religions,  in  physiology  and  medicine,  in 
the  general  evolution  of  humanity,  will  find  in  The  Humboldt  the  productions  of 
the  master  minds  of  the  age,— the  great  leaders  of  modern  thought. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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